by Joseph P. Tartaro | Executive Editor
The Olympic Shooting Centre located in Deodoro Olympic Park underwent minor work to receive the Rio 2016 Games. The seven shooting ranges used for the 2007 Pan American Games were modernized and a temporary one was built to stage some of the finals.
Even before we got to the start of the big summer shooting event schedule, top competitors were honing their skills at qualifying events, including, especially for the Olympic hopefuls—world class events in the US or overseas that would qualify them for the USA Olympic Shooting team.
For example, in the final World Cup prior to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 11 USA Shooting athletes made their way to Baku, Azerbaijan, for the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup for rifle/pistol/shotgun in June. They had to qualify through other earlier events, according to USA Shooting, the governing body for shooting sports under the US Olympic Committee.
Shooting sports at the Olympics are managed by the ISSF.
The Olympics in Brazil kick off with the televised opening ceremonies on Aug. 5 when athletes from around the world march into the Olympic Stadium in Rio for the lighting of the torch. Competitions, which may be telecast by the NBC Network and its cable offshoots like NBC Sports Network, start on Aug. 6, including shooting, which runs through Aug. 14. NBC this year seems to have forecast that some shooting events would be covered, unlike many previous Olympics.
The full USA Shooting Team wasn’t yet finalized as this issue went to press, but Women’s 10 meter air rifle and men’s 10 meter air pistol will be among the first events.
On Aug, 7, 10-meter women’s air pistol, women’s trap and Day 1 of Men’s trap will be fired. On Aug. 8, 10-meter men’s air rifle and Day 2 of Men’s trap will be fired. Twenty-five-meter women’s pistol is scheduled for Aug. 9, followed the next day by men’s double trap, and 50-meter men’s pistol. Women’s 50-meter three position rifle will be fired on Aug. 11.
Perhaps the busiest shooting day will be Aug. 12 when 50-meter men’s prone rifle, women’s skeet, men’s skeet Day 1 and 25-meter Men’s rapid fire pistol Day 1 competition will be held.
The Olympic shooting events wrap on Aug. 13, with Day 2 of Men’s skeet, and 25-meter men’s rapid fire pistol on the first day and Aug. 14, with 50-meter men’s three position rifle.
Leading off the American shotgun team will be Kim Rhode of El Monte, CA, already a living legend in her world class shooting and within Olympic history. Rhode is the first American ever to win Olympic medals in five consecutive Olympic Games in an individual sport. In Brazil she will be competing against the world’s best in Women’s Skeet as she chases her sixth Olympic medal. Rhode will be joined in Rio de Janeiro by Frank Thompson, Alliance, NE, who won the Men’s Skeet competition at the Tillar, AR, trials, punching his ticket to a second Olympic Games. Thompson finished in eighth place In London in 2012.
All seven Team USA Olympic spots in shotgun have been determined and it has a similar look to London 2012 with the only new addition being 2015 World Champion Morgan Craft of Muncy Valley, PA. All told, there are nine Olympic medals among the group. Craft, Vincent Hancock, Eatonton, GA, and Glenn Eller, US Army Marksmanship Unit/Houston, TX, all earned their spots through USA Shooting’s Points System for Olympic Selection. Josh Richmond, US Army Marksmanship Unit/Hillgrove, PA, Rhode, Thompson, and Corey Cogdell-Unrein. She was a bronze medalist in Women’s Trap in 2008.
Shooting events have been a part of all the Olympic Games except the 1904 Games in St. Louis, MO, and the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. Individual and team events were fired until 1948, when team contests were eliminated.
At the National Matches, which have been fired at the Ohio National Guard’s Camp Perry ranges since 1907, the competitions began with National Rifle Association (NRA) and Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) pistol matches running from July 12 to 16. Thereafter, small bore and high power rifle and long range matches will continue through the middle of August. Included in the National Match program are a number of small arms firing schools and clinics designed for youth and adults, airgun competitions and vintage rifle and carbine events.
The World Trapshooting Championship, better known to many of the Grand American, will be fired from Aug. 3 – 13, preceded by the Amateur Trapshooting Association’s youth-oriented AIM Grand Championships: July 28-Aug. 2.
After August, you’ll still find a number of major shooting events, such as the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association’s Fall National Shoot, Sept. 10 to 18 in Friendship, IN, and the World Skeet Championship conducted by the National Skeet Shooting Association at their San Antonio, TX, complex Sept. 30 to Oct. 8.
