FT. BENNING, Ga. – It was an exciting day of competition at the 2003 National Championships in Fort Benning, Ga. Every championship medal was thoroughly earned as three events came to a close Thursday.
It was a battle to the finish for Eric Weeldreyer (Kalamazoo, Mich.) and John Zurek (Phoenix, Ariz.) in both the Men’s Center Fire Pistol and the Men’s Standard Pistol contests. Zurek led both the events after the first day, but Weeldreyer just couldn’t miss in the second-day matches, sweeping in for the double-win.
Weeldreyer commented that he felt like he was floating after the Men’s Center Fire match. He shot a 583 to tie Zurek and send the match into a shootout. In the end, Weeldreyer clinched his 11th Championship medal in six years, and his second Championship win of the day. He won the Men’s Standard Pistol by a one-point margin over Zurek earlier in the day.
“I remember an Olympic shooter once told me that even if the whole world was watching, he couldn’t miss,” Weeldreyer said after his second win. “That is how I felt today. The nine’s I was shooting were so close that after I made just a slight adjustment, the 10’s were dead on.”
And the 10’s just kept on coming. In fact, Weeldreyer shot 20 10’s in a row. And even with that extraordinary shooting Weeldreyer kept himself grounded.
“It was just one of those afternoons,” he said. “Zurek is the real story here. He has improved so much since last year. He’s really been phenomenal.”
Zurek, whose mom came down from Michigan to cheer him on, has four medals under his belt—one gold and three silver-- and still has one more event to go. Rapid Fire Pistol will be the final pistol competition of the week. The squadded training starts tomorrow, with matches and awards closing out the weekend.
The Men’s Rifle Prone contest also came down to a photo finish with Joe Hein, a college junior at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, and veteran shooter, Michael Anti (Fort Benning, Ga.), battling back and forth for the lead. In the end, it was Anti by a hair, winning the championship by a tenth of a point with a score of 1,295.1. Eric Uptagrafft (Longmont, Colo.) grabbed third with 1,292.8.
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Thursday's results
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