TargetTalk

From the U.S. Olympic Committee:

U.S. shooter Jason Turner was awarded a bronze medal in the 10-meter air pistol event after Kim Jong Su from North Korea was disqualified for a positive drug test. Turner was fourth in the competition before Kim's doping positive. From Rochester, N.Y., Turner lives and trains at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. A 2004 Olympian, he will receive his medal in a ceremony hosted by the U.S. Olympic Committee on Saturday, August 16 with time and location to be determined.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/shooting/new ... ing+tests/

http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/I ... #SHM203101

Rhode Earns Fourth Career Olympic Medal Taking Home Silver in Beijing

BEIJING, China (August 14, 2008) – Kim Rhode (El Monte, Calif.) added to her Olympic medal tally today when she captured the silver medal in the Women’s Skeet event at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Rhode, who won the gold in Women’s Double Trap in 1996 and 2004 as well as the bronze in 2000, also shot in the skeet event at the Sydney and Athens Olympic Games, but switched to skeet shooting full-time after the Women’s Double Trap event was taken out of Olympic competition in 2004.

“After double trap was eliminated in 2004, it was a bittersweet win for me,” said Rhode. “On one hand I won the gold, but on the other hand I knew the challenge I faced in completely switching to skeet. I couldn’t be happier with winning a medal today. Gold, silver or bronze, I don’t think it matters. I am just so glad to be back at the Olympics and representing my country.”

Rhode claimed her silver medal after an exciting shoot-off. She went into the final tied for third place at 70 out of 75 targets with three other shooters. After hitting 23 out of 25 targets in the final, Rhode came out tied for first place at 93 targets with Italy’s Chiara Cainero and Christine Brinker of Germany. In the sudden death shoot-off, Rhode and Brinker each missed a target on their first pair, while Cainero hit both her targets, giving her the gold medal. Battling for the silver in a second shoot-off, Brinker missed one of her targets and Rhode hit both to claim the silver.

Jamie Beyerle (Lebanon, Pa.) barely missed out on earning a spot on the medal podium today in the Women’s 3 Position Rifle event. Beyerle entered the final with a score of 586, just three points out of first place, which was held by China’s Du Li. Despite shooting an excellent final score of 100.9 and standing in second place overall going into the final shot, Beyerle fired a score of 8.7, which wasn’t enough to land her on the podium and she finished in fifth place with an overall score of 686.9.

“It was a great match. I am disappointed, but to finish in fifth place isn’t bad and it’s really been a great experience overall shooting at the Olympics,” Beyerle said.

Sandra Fong (New York, N.Y.), the other U.S. shooter competing in women’s 3 position and the youngest member of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Shooting team, finished in 21st place with a score of 577.

Du Li hung on to win the gold medal with 690.3, while Katy Emmons of the Czech Republic, wife of U.S. shooter Matt Emmons, won her second medal of the Games, taking home the silver with a final score of 687.7. Cuba’s Yaima Eglis Cruz took the bronze, finishing right behind Emmons in third place with 687.6.

Friday’s competition at the Beijing Shooting Range Hall/CTF will feature the Men’s 50m Prone Rifle, Men’s Skeet and Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol events. Both the qualification and final round will be held in prone, while 75 targets will be shot in the skeet competition and stage 1 of the rapid fire event will be contested.



Matt Emmons (Browns Mills, N.J.), the 2004 gold medalist in Men’s Prone, will be competing in his first event of the 2008 Olympic Games tomorrow, vying for another spot on the podium in the prone event. Emmons had an extremely successful 2007, winning a total of eight medals on the ISSF World Cup circuit. He captured a gold medal in the Men’s 50m 3 Position Rifle event, as well as a silver in the Men’s Prone Rifle event at the 2007 World Cup Final. Most recently, Emmons claimed a bronze medal in prone at the 2008 World Cup in Milan. Michael Anti (Winterville, N.C.), a Major in the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) is the 2004 Olympic silver medalist in Men’s 3 Position Rifle and will be competing in the prone event this time around in Beijing.


Already at the young age of 19, USAMU member Vincent Hancock (Eatonton, Ga.) is a World Champion, Pan American Games Champion and the 2007 World Cup Italy Champion and world record holder in Men’s Skeet. Hancock will be representing the U.S. on his first Olympic team here in Beijing. Joining him will be 22-year-old Sean McLelland (Mission, Texas), who finished in second place behind Hancock at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Shotgun and will be competing in his first ever Olympic Games.



For complete results, please visit the following link on the official website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games: http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/S ... 8-14.shtml

Wow! Great For Jason! He's worked so hard to get there ... as I'm sure the PRN shooter had. I wonder what type of drugs he tested positive for?

Propanolol is a banned betablocker, which can be used to prevent trembling in events such as shooting and archery.

Found it in that first link

Great for Jason!

I am stunned that someone would still try and get away with this though .... isn't IOC holding the samples for like 6 or 8 years now?

Better & faster tests keep coming out ....

Jason wasn't "elevated to Bronze."

He was the bronze medal winner all along.

Somebody tried to cheat him out of it- that's all.

Congratulations to Jason and Brian for their 3/4 finishes!

Propanolol, Atenolol, Carvediol, Metoprolol and similar Beta-blockers do not "prevent trembling in events such as shooting and archery". The family of Beta-blockers controls hypertension(high blood pressure) by lowering the patient's heart rate. Beta-blockers are usually the physician's last resort to control hypertension. Calcium channel blockers and other pharmaceuticals are always tried first because of certain possible side effects from Beta-blockers ie. erectile disfunction, the inability of the patient to exercise because the heart cannnot respond to exercise by the heart rate increasing naturally(this results in "lack of energy per patients") and dizzyness if the patient is overmedicated, the heart rate drops too low and the patient passes out because there is not enough heart rate to pump a sufficient amount of blood to the brain and lungs. It is not uncommon to see patients on daily doses of Beta-blocker that are too high with heart rates in the 30's. Being on Beta-blockers is much better than having a stroke from high blood pressure and for those patients the side effects must be lived with.

If a shooter has hypertension that can only be controlled by Beta-blockers then it would be fair for that person to be allowed to compete on his normal dose of Beta-blockers in the shooting sports. But that person's medical history of hypertension over a long period of time with documented attempts to try other pharmaceuticals to control the hypertension should be presented to officials before being approved to enter a competition on Beta-blockers or calcium channel blockers. If the person's heart rate just before the start of the event was artificially too low that would be an indication that the competitor did not really need the Beta-blockers to control hypertension.

That stated. Beta-blockers give a shooter an unfair advantage by slowing the heart rate down to the point where the shot can more easily be squeezed off between heart beats. Beta-blockers would also theoretically prevent the heart rate from increasing due to nerves or excitement.

Beta-blockers are never the way to go if you do not have hypertension or if you have hypertension that can be controlled with other medications. If you see caffeine(soft drinks) on the firing line and someone taking their pulse while shooting, my conclusion would be that they are on so much Beta-blocker that if they do not have some caffeine and high fructose corn syrup their heart rate will go so low that they will loose consciousness.

It's like I tell my 16 year old the best thing to do is be the athlete. Drugs that you do not medically need will always cause you trouble. Crosstrain (run, swim, ride bikes, play tennis, raquetball, etc. anything fun), stay at the correct weight, make your mind strong and the better cardiovascular shape you are in the lower your heart rate will naturally be. I still think the long distance runners have the lowest heart rates and blood pressures of all athletes and there is no way technically they can be on Beta-blockers and run the way they do.

This is just my opinion but results from three decades of working in major medical centers.

Bobby R. Huddleston

It is used to treat tremors and it is also used to relieve stage fright and performance anxiety.

http://www.drugs.com/propranolol.html
http://www.rxlist.com/cgi/generic/propran_ids.htm

These are just two of hundreds of sources.

Beta Blockers can not be used by shooters in or out of competition and no Theraputic Use Exemption (TUE) will be granted. Which means if you need Beta Blockers to control your Hyper Tension you won't be shooting, thats tough but that is the rule.

The major point is not to take drugs that you do not need for a medical condition. Only an unscrupulous physician would prescribe a high blood pressure medicine for tremors, nervousness and "stage fright". I see patients with PTSD and Anxiety Attack Disorders from combat every day that are on the Beta blockers like Propanolol but receive no relief from the PTSD and Anxiety Attacks from this medication. They do have their blood pressure under control though. There are other more appropriate medications and therapies for Anxiety and PTSD.

Do not trust the two websites listed above, the hundreds like it or the PDR. I learned not to trust those things in Pharmacy School. I make at least fourteen separate decisions each working day concerning Beta-blockers. This is part of my profession. I will list all those letters I usually do not list behind my name to verify my credibility in the Medical field.

Stepping down from the soapbox now.

Bobby R. Huddleston C.N.M.T., A.S., A.R.R.T.(R)(N)

Ya

atomicbrh wrote:Only an unscrupulous physician would prescribe a high blood pressure medicine for tremors, nervousness and "stage fright".

We're OK then because we never see unscrupulous physicians in sport do we.

atomicbrh wrote:Do not trust the two websites listed above, the hundreds like it or the PDR.

Funnily enough I doubt whether THE doping experts at WADA and the ISSF look at those sites either. They make their own decisions based on the facts, and have banned beta-blockers in shooting.

Back when the U.S. NRA actually published research on shooting, they produced the following book: Landers, Daniel M. (ed), and Hunt, Karen J. (ed), Shooting Sports Research, Education and Training Division, NRA, 1988. The book has not been available from the NRA in some years, and no follow-on volumes were produced, although it was supposed to be the first in a series of volumes on shooting sports research. The book was a compendium of serious, world-wide, research articles on various aspects of competitive shooting. Two articles "The Benefits of Oxprenolol in Skill Sports" and "Psychic Conditions and Oxprenolol" discussed the possible positive advantages to a competitive shooter in using Oxprenolol, a beta-blocking drug. The studies found that beta-blockers reduced strong psychic stress, without reducing skill performance abilities, in sports where aerobic endurance was not a factor in performance. Tranquilizers - including ethol alcohol - on the other hand, reduced stress, but also reduced performance. Among the tests noted was one conducted by Dr. Laslo Antal, the noted British pistol shooter, coach and author, using the British national pistol squad in 1980. I'll quote from the abstract of Antal's tests:

"Results showed that on 40 mg dosages of oxprenolol, slow fire scores averaged 2.9 points above those who were given the placebo....On 80 mg doses of oxprenolol..., the average score was 3.4 points above those who were given the placebo....analysis further showed that the number of 'wild' shots (outside the nine ring) significantly decreased on both dosages of oxprenolol." Oxprenolol was much more effective with slow fire scores than with rapid fire scores.

Since finals at major world slow-fire shooting events are settled by much closer scores than these, the potential advantages are clear. The article "The Benefits of Oxprenolol in Skill Sports" went on to state:

"Shooters on oxprenolol generally reported less nervousness before shooting, higher assessments of well-being, and better concentration during shooting. The improvement in scores and subjective feelings tended to be more dramatic in those with lower scores when not on the drug. The drug reduces the cardiovascular and the metabolic effects of stress, so it would seem likely that those who were more affected by stress...might derive relatively more benefits from beta-blocking drugs."

A pasted in note in Shooting Sports Research indicated that the International Shooting Union and International Olympic Committee had concluded that Beta-blockers could be an artificial aid and had banned them.

Several other articles on the subject:

Krause, P., Ladefoged, J., Nielsen, P. E. P., & Sorensen, J. P., "Beta Blockage Used in Precision Sports: Effects on Pistol Shooting Performance", Journal of Applied Physiology, 61, (1986), pp. 417-420.

S'Jongers, J.J., Willain, P., Sierakowski, J., Vogelaere, P., Van Vlaenderen, G., & De Rudder, M. (1978), "Effects of Placebos and of Small Doses of a Beta Blocker (Oxprenolol) and Ethyl Alcohol on the Precision of Pistol Shooting. Bruxelles medical, 58 (8), 395 399.

Schmid, P. (1990), "The Use of Beta Blocking Agents in Competitive Sports," Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift, 140 (6 7), 184 188.

Siitonen, L., Sonck, T., & Janne, J. (1977)., "Effect of Beta Blockade on Performance: Use of Beta Blockade in Bowling and Shooting Competitions," Journal of International Medical Research, 5359 366

Regards,

Don

Bobby, amazingly enough you and the unscrupulous doctors have one thing in common, you don't believe anyone else's, including than manufacture's research and findings.

I suggest if you are going to argue about performance enhancing drugs you do a little research on the subject. It has nothing to do with what you were taught in school nor your work in a hospital.

As for unscrupulous doctors here's a few to research Dr. Francesco Conconi, Dr. Michael Ferrari, and Dr. Jamie Astaphan.

Oh yea what about all the doctors that are prescribing HGH to healthy people to reduce the effects of aging?

I'm not judging what you do for a living, you may and are probably good at it, but it is clear you have very little experience in the world of elite athletes, sports and doping. It is a very interesting field filled with many moral and ethical question, I'm sure with your background you would find the research interesting if you also have an interest in sports.

Please feel free to PM me if you'd like to discuss it further.

Dittos on Richards and Dons posts.

The "desirable side effects" of beta blockers go well beyond what you acknowledge.

[Frankly, for pistol shooting (different for rifle), a slower heart rate is no big deal.]

When I was shooting NRA pistol sports (beta blockers allowed) and had to transition to ISSF rules- everything else for Air Pistol was exactly the same, except for drugs allowed/prohibited- I saw a *huge* difference that had to be overcome.

Yeah of course this only a single anecdotal, uncontrolled observation but the clinical research backs it up.

The deepened and extended "Zone" (time "in the bubble") was incredible.

Don wrote:Among the tests noted was one conducted by Dr. Laslo Antal, the noted British pistol shooter, coach and author, using the British national pistol squad in 1980.

I was talking last year to one of the shooters from that trial. He still talks about the disappointment when the trial finished; he had to go back to relying on his undoubted natural ability.