Army marksmen miss finals in day 4 of Olympic shooting

[USAMU]

By Tim Hipps
USACFSC Public Affairs

ATHENS, Greece - Two Soldiers from the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit failed to reach the finals of their events in the 2004 Summer Olympic Games Aug. 17 at Markopoulo Olympic Shooting Centre.
Three-time Olympian Sgt. 1st Class Bret Erickson, 43, of Bennington, Neb., finished in a two-way tie for 13th place in men's double trap shotgun shooting. He scored 130 points in three qualifying rounds. The cutoff to make the six-shooter final was 135 points.
Ahmed Almaktoum of United Arab Emirates won the gold medal by equaling the Olympic final record of 189 points. He qualified for the anticlimactic final with 144 points, another Olympic standard. India's Rajyavardhan Rathore took the silver medal with 179 points. China's Zheng Wang won the bronze medal with 178.
Two-time Olympian Sgt. 1st Class Daryl Szarenski, 36, of Saginaw, Mich., finished in a three-way tie for 15th place in men's 50-meter pistol shooting. He finished the qualification round with 554 points. The cutoff to make the eight-shooter final was 562 points.
Russia's Mikhail Nestruev won the gold medal with 663.3 points. Korea's Jong Oh Jin won the silver medal with a 661.5 total. Democratic People's Republic of Korea's Jong Su Kim took the bronze medal with 657.7 points.
In earlier competition, Erickson finished 13th in Olympic men's trap shooting Aug. 14 through 15.
"I got a bad bird early in the first round," said Erickson, who was troubled by the wind. "It got up in the air and when I shot it jumped about six feet up. And when I went up after it to shoot with the second shot, it dropped about 10 feet.
"It got in my head and I couldn't get it out. It was just one of those deals with the added pressure of being the Olympics, once it got in there, I couldn't get it out."
Erickson entered the finals in third place but failed to close the deal.
Team USA's other entry, Lance Bade, 34, of Vancouver, Wash., finished fifth in the trap final.