where are you?
if you are in Arizona Contact me immediately, if not, post your location and ask for locals (maybe on the rifle shooting forum instead of shooters lounge)
are you an adult or a junior? there are a lot of NRA-based junior .22 programs in nearly every community, adults are more on their own.
Join USA Shooting and look on their website for PTO (Preliminary Try Out it means registered match) in your area and join that local club meet those folks etc
there is good coaching info on the
http://www.pilkguns.com/ and
http://www.targetshooting.ca/ websites but it a lot of it is pistol oriented.
http://www.pilkguns.com/menu_coaching.shtml
NRA smallbore rifle is similar enough to olympic rifle that it will give you a good start if your club does that shooting.
get on
http://www.nbcolympics.com/ and see if you can find the videos from the rifle finals, watch the techniques.
buy the books "the way of the rifle" and "air rifle shooting"
http://www.pilkguns.com/books.shtml
as to equipment, get eye and ear protection the books above AND NOTHING ELSE until you meet with shooters and see the equipment and shoot a few different guns
if your local has a strong olympic shooting program, they'll get you pointed in the right direction, if you live in a place where winter time shooting is indoors or if there is a good air rifle program that might be the way to go, if you live in a place with a stronger NRA smallbore program 50m (.22) rifle might be the way to start.
There are 5 olympic rifle events, Are you male or female (the events are slightly different), Air rifle is 10m indoor (40 shots women, 60 shots men), 50m rifle is .22, 3 position (60 shots women 120 shots men) and a separate mens-only prone-only 60 shot event. Some folks specialize in just air or just .22 for equipment or training reasons. Others shoot both.
a shooting coat is VERY important, but you must get one that fits you and meets ISSF (Olympic) rules (NRA coats do not, but you can use an ISSF coat in NRA)
if you can borrow a rifle, start with that, decide how serious you are, if you really want to get into this sport, buy the best, often you can find used gear, but it takes digging you will find NOTHING for this sport in a local gun shop (unless you live in about 3 specific small towns in the US, where our suppliers are located)
ISSF shooting gear is very specialized, and its almost all made by people paid in Euros hence it is EXPENSIVE.
But this type of shooting is incredibly demanding and even if you never get to the point of qualifying for a team or winning medals, you can compete against and next to olympic medallists (unlike any other sport) and derive a huge amount of personal satisfaction.
welcome to the sport
Poole