LONDON — Vincent Hancock of the United States has won the gold medal in the men’s skeet competition at the London Olympics, his second straight.
It gives the U.S. a skeet sweep, after Kimberly Rhode won the women’s competition earlier this week.
Brushing back a forgettable 2011 season, Vincent Hancock won a second consecutive Olympic gold medal in men’s skeet shooting.
Hancock became the first U.S. man to win skeet events in consecutive Olympics, though it wasn’t without drama Tuesday at Royal Artillery Barracks.
He held a slim one-point lead over Denmark’s Anders Golding before the final round but grabbed some breathing room after Golding missed the 17th of 25 targets.
Hancock hit 148 of 150 targets throughout the two-day competition, including a perfect 25 of 25 in the final round to beat Golding, who hit 146.
Hancock, 23, struggled at times since winning the event at the Beijing Olympics, finishing 67th in last year’s world championships in Serbia, where he said earlier this week he simply “bottomed out.”
Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiya won the bronze medal after an extra round to break a tie with Russia’s Valeriy Shomin.
Yes it does, and not just because the IOC and the NRA say so. Rhode was born with skills, worked years to perfect them, overcame adversity and excelled under pressure.You know, all the traits we admire in our greatest athletes.
As for actual athleticism, shooting small discs out of the air isn’t quite like doing back flips on four-inch beam. But you try doing what Rhode did Sunday.
In the wind and rain at the Royal Artillery Barracks, she hit 74 of 75 flying targets at one point.
“It’s a bummer to miss a bird,” she said. “But sometimes you just miss.”
Rhode hasn’t missed much since winning a gold medal in Atlanta when she was 16. She got a bronze in Sydney, gold in Athens and silver in Beijing.
By chronological and mathematical standards, Rhode now stands alone in the America’s Olympic pantheon.
Anybody got a number for the Wheaties people?
“It’s truly overwhelming,” Rhode said.
Only four other people have won individual medals in five straight games. They were a Japanese judoka and three German lugers, all of whom are about as well known in America as Rhode.
Her name is pronounced Roadie. She has long blonde hair she stuffs under a cap while competing. On Sunday, her voice squeaked like Mary Lou Retton’s in 1984. Blame it on the occasion.
“The journey for this one was probably my most challenging,” Rhode said.
She had a hard time even getting to London. Flights from Los Angeles were canceled two straight days, so she missed the U.S. team’s training sessions in Denmark.
Her body didn’t have the planned time to adjust to European time. In the precise world Rhode competes in, the tiniest mental twitch can ruin your entire day.
Then there were bigger issues on the road to London. Like a breast cancer scare, and having to adjust to a new shotgun. That may not seem like a big deal, but Rhode had pulled the same trigger for 18 years.
A felonious skeet groupie followed her truck one day. When Rhode stopped for lunch, he broke in hoping to find some of her medals. He didn’t find those, but he did steal her gun.
Police finally caught the guy 18 months later. By then, Rhode had reluctantly moved on to another gun.
“It would be the equivalent of a swimmer going from the backstroke to diving,” she said.
Her father took her on a hunting trip to South Africa when she was 11. The guides said she was too young to join the safari. Richard Rhode told them to test her.
The guides got a paper plate and placed it 100 yards away. Richard said that was too easy. He told them to make an ink blot the size of a thumbnail in the middle of the plate. Kim hit it five straight times.
“They just started laughing,” Richard said. “They said, ‘Man, she can shoot anything she wants.’”
A lot of prodigies have vanished before making one Olympics. Rhode didn’t waste her skills. She’d get up at 4 a.m. to do her homework and leave time for after-school training.
She’d shoot 500-1,000 rounds a day, seven days a week. She’s long out of school, but the grind’s the same.
“They have me at 3 million-plus targets,” Rhode said.
A lot of hard-working prodigies have shot themselves in the foot when their Olympic chance arrived. Not this one.
“I love that moment of coming down to the last target,” Rhode said.
It didn’t come down to that Sunday. She set an Olympic record with 74 points in the qualifying round, and tied the world record for points in a final with 99.
“Don’t quote me on this because I don’t want to sound immodest,” Richard said, “but the International Sports Shooting Federation called her the greatest shooter ever.”
Sorry, Dad. You deserve to be quoted as much as Michael Phelps’ mother was in Beijing. Just don’t use up your voice in London.
The oldest medal winner in Olympic history was Oscar Swahn. As all shooting fans know, he got a silver in the running deer, double shots competition.
“He was 72,” Rhode said. “I’m 33.”
Have gun, will travel.
Next stop—Rio de Janeiro?
“I’m just taking it one Olympics at a time,” Rhode said.
Somewhere along the way, everybody needs to realize how great she is.
Original article by David Whitley. To see the original article click here
This time next week the London Olympic Games won’t be in full swing, they’ll be winding down. Hopefully by next Monday evening, United States’ shooters will have pushed all our shooting sports, rifle, pistol, shotgun, air rifle and archery – into the spotlight. It’s no exaggeration to say the our teams include the top-tier shooters in every discipline. What actually happens won’t be determined by previous performances- each Olympic games takes on its own personality.
In the light of yet another tragedy in Colorado, the London Olympic Games might be a key part of some very-much needed positive PR for shooting.
We’re not to the point that we’re “dis-inviting” our shooting athletes from joining teammates at events (that happened in Canada where a pair of shooters have been told they can’t stand beside their peers in the Ontario Summer Games next month), but it’s been too-easy lately for some to reach the the illogical conclusion that since guns are capable of doing bad things all gun owners must be bad people.
Kim Rhode
More than any other sport I’ve ever covered, the superstars of shooting sports are anything but bad people. In fact, they’re more than willing to introduce others to their sports -and provide expert assistance. They’re unfailingly polite, patient occasionally to a fault, and more than willing to endure the seemingly-endless stories other shooters insist on telling them.
This year Kim Rhode is “the girl” for shooting. A medal means she’ll become the first United States Olympic athlete to medal in five consecutive Games – enter some pretty rarified air-even for the Olympics.
Kim’s in the thick of things right off the jump, and we’ll know by mid-morning this Sunday (July 29) if she’s reached her goal. Being the first United States athlete to medal in five consecutive games will guarantee much-needed publicity.
Even the most hard-core anti-gun person will be hard pressed to say anything that would diminish her accomplishments or her unfailingly-positive personality. To say I’m pulling for Kim would be an understatement. I’m pulling for every American athlete- I’m cheering for Kim.
Brady Ellison
How big would a fifth medal in five games be for USA Shooting? Since 1986 the United States has collected 103 medals – total (47 gold, 28 silver, 28 bronze). Kim has four of that total, already making her the stuff of Olympic shooting legend much like shooting-icon and team inspiration Lones Wigger.
In archery, it’s no exaggeration to say that Brady Ellison is also considered the one to beat to the top of the medal stand when it comes to recurve bows, but all the USA Archery team members are capable of taking positions on atop the stands as well.
Ellison’s out to prove that his twenty-seventh place finish in Beijing in 2008 wasn’t the definition of his career, but the turning point. Since then, he’s been virtually unbeatable – and carries that momentum into the London.
Teammates Miranda Leek, Jennifer Nichols, Jake Kaminski, Jacob Wukie, and Khatuna Lorig aren’t pushovers, either. So don’t be surprised to see any of our extremely talented archers on the medal stands before the competition on the Lord’s Cricket Grounds.
US Women’s Archery Team getting in last-minute practice yesterday. Their competition begins-today. USA Archery photo.
Leek, incidentally, is only 19 years old and has only just moved up from the juniors program. She, along with Jacob Wukie and Jake Kaminski are first-time Olympians. Ellison’s there for the second time, Jennifer Nichols for the second time, and they’re being coached through the Olympic jitters by four-time veteran Khatuna Lorig. She’s told them “it’s just another tournament”.
Olympic shooting – especially with firearms – is one of those sports that -unfortunately- only crosses our collective consciousness every four years or so. That’s why many of us have no idea what a Pardini, TTOX, Morini, or Feinwerkbau is- or does (they’re all Olympic pistol makerss). We readily associate Rhode/Perazzi or Hancock/Beretta, but that’s because shotgun sports are far more mainline shooting than, for example, Free Pistol. Just as an FYI, “free” doesn’t refer to the costs, it refers to the fact that the diminutive .22 caliber short pistol used for that competition is “free” of any equipment restrictions. It’s the “race gun” or “Open” category of Olympic shooting.
Another challenge to popularizing Olympic shooting- as in any precision shooting sport -is that some competitions can run as long as three hours. Not three hours of banging and clanging; we’re talking three hours of precision shooters taking time to still themselves between shots. That “still” thing can involve anything from sitting and reading the paper between shots to deep meditation. Neither are crowd builders.
Olympic shooters cover a ton of demographic area, too. From 19-year old archer Miranda Leek to seasoned veteran shooter Eric Uptagrafft and Paralympian Eric Hollen (both 46).
We also have a husband and wife team Eric and Sandra Uptagrafft (they’ll celebrate their anniversary in London) and what I term a mixed-doubles pair: Matt Emmons of Team USA and his wife, Katy. Katy will once again be competing for the Czech Republic FYI, the story of how they came to meet and marry is definitely the stuff that romance movies are made of.
Since the first shooting competitions in 1896, things have certainly changed. There are no longer live pigeons (1900 Games only) or running deer targets. They’ve been eliminated, as have uber-realistic targets like the dueling targets. They weren’t just humanoid, they wore frock coats and the bullseye was the throat. Nothing resembles a living target -and the bulls-eye is most frequently referred to as “X”.
Perhaps the most profound change for the London Games is the speed of information. More than ever before, these games will be instantaneously reported-whether you’re near a television or not. We’re not pretending to be the source for your most up-to-the-second information. In fact, we’ll be following the various live streams from NBC sports www.nbcolympics.com/liveextra websites www.teamusa.org, www.issf-sports.org, www.london2012.com, www.olympic.org and www.usashooting.org like the rest of you. We’ll also be augmenting that information with direct communications with the athletes and coaches, so we will have some insight into the back stories from London.
Here’s a few resources you might not have in your 2012 London Games toolkit:
Mobile Apps
Team USA
Official London 2012 Results App
NBC Olympics App
FACEBOOK
Facebook.com/USAArchery
Facebook.com/USAShooting
Facebook.com/USOLYMPICTEAM
Facebook.com/LONDON2012
Facebook.com/NBColympics
Facebook.com/usparalympics (those games begin August 30)
Facebook.com/MEDALQUEST
And don’t forget Twitter. You can follow the action there at a pace that’s determined to either drive your office or bedmates nuts if you assign a sound to the various “tweets”.
And don’t forget the young shooters’ feeds:
@KimRhode
@GrayOlympics
@Amanda_Furrer
@JONDH3188
@WGELLER3
@JoshuaRichmond4
@VincentHancock
@CoryCogdell
Beginning tomorrow (Saturday, July 28) through Monday, August 6, many of the eyes of the world will be focused on our Olympic athletes. For shooting enthusiasts, twenty-one United States athletes will be competing in 13 of the 15 shooting events (we have no quota slots in Men’s Trap or Women’s 10M Air Pistol) -and their chances look as good-or better-than they have in quite a long time.
We don’t want to put performance pressure on them; but we certainly want to put pride in their performances- even before they fire their first shot- behind them.
Actor Jason Alexander and rapper Ice-T are offering polar opposite opinions about gun control in the wake of the Aurora theater shooting. What’s so interesting about this disagreement is that both celebrities were born in the same place: Newark, New Jersey. Based on their recent comments, Newark might be the only thing that these two men have in common.
Web Pro News reports that Jason Alexander sparked an online debate about gun control with a flagrant Twitter post:
We’ll resist the urge to answer that loaded question because an army of Twitter users answered it for us. Alexander shared in another post, “I get messages from seemingly decent and intelligent people who offer things like: @BrooklynAvi: Guns should only be banned if violent crimes committed with tomatoes means we should ban tomatoes. OR @nysportsguys1: Drunk drivers kill, should we ban fast cars?”
Alexander countered these questions by arguing that the only real purpose of firearms like the AR-15 is to kill other people: “So basically, the purpose of an assault style weapon is to kill more stuff, more fully, faster and from further away. To achieve maximum lethality. Hardly the primary purpose of tomatoes and sports cars.” You can find Jason Alexander’s full response here.
Ice-T, on the other hand, participated in an interview with Channel 4 News, revealing that he is pro-gun.
Are you getting a feeling of déjà vu? That’s because Ice-T has said all of this before. He shared in an interview with CNN last month that he sees guns as a means of self-defense against a tyrannical government.
Ice-T hasn’t lost his love of gun rights over the past month. If anything, he’s arguing for gun rights more vehemently. Pairing the statement with an expression that seemed to say, “And if you don’t like it, then too bad,” Ice-T told interviewer Krishnan Guru-Murthy, “I’ll give up my gun when everybody else does.”
[youtube]http://youtu.be/-GwIbyp4xBU[/youtube]
Guru-Murthy threw Ice-T a few curve balls, but Ice-T was unflappable in his answers. When the interviewer asked Ice-T if owning a gun made killing people easier, Ice-T answered, “Not really… You can strap explosives on your body. They do that all the time.”
So, which celebrity are you more inclined to agree with? Are assault rifles like AR-15s too dangerous for civilians, or are guns a way for citizens to protect themselves against an oppressive government? We’d love to put Alexander and Ice-T in the same room and listen to them duke it out over gun rights, Newark-style.
Armory Blog featured this sexy bullet-shaped USB flash drive.
Just look at your car keys. They’re boring, aren’t they? They probably don’t say much more about you other than the type of car that you drive, and unless you followed the instructions we put up the other week about how to create your own shotgun shell keychain, then your keys probably don’t express your gun love, either. How can you call yourself a proponent of the Second Amendment if you keys aren’t making a stand?
This bullet-shaped USB flash drive might be the answer to your problem of boring car keys. Add one of these suckers to your key ring, and you’ll be sporting a high-caliber fashion accessory that’s as useful as it is stylin.’ The 3.5” USB flash drive holds 8gb of data and is available on Amazon for about 15 bucks, plus shipping.
It may be a tiny bit pricier than the shotgun keychain and it probably won’t appeal as much to the do-it-yourselfers out there, but this is a great pick for gun and electronic aficionados.
We’ve already ordered a couple for ourselves. Of course, we run a website about guns, so anything that combines electronics and firearms is right up our alley.
Once again the actions of one have left many grieving and an entire country searching for answers. Last week a gunman walked into a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and opened fire on a mass audience leaving several victims either dead or injured. Since then many media outlets and organizations have had time to digest the events and attempted to offer some sort of solution — if there is one.
Although the general consensus is that people want guns and they want concealed carry, but as you may have imagined most speaking out are in favor of gun control measures.
Die hard gun control advocates are pushing for stricter gun laws while others with a less aggressive stance are hoping to find a compromise with pro-gun groups. On the flip side, others suggest that officials simply hold the shooter responsible rather than put faith in fruitless laws, and pro-gun groups have been either unresponsive or redirect the conversation.
Brady Campaign
Beginning with an extreme end of the spectrum, the Brady Campaign quickly released a statement on Friday asking that U.S. citizens demand leaders take action:
This tragedy is another grim reminder that guns are the enablers of mass killers and that our nation pays an unacceptable price for our failure to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. We are outraged.
… we don’t want sympathy. We want action. Just this past April 16, the anniversary of the worst mass shooting in American history, 32 victims of gun violence joined us to demand Congress take action to stop arming dangerous people.
… We are insistent that our elected leaders take action to prevent future tragedies. Political cowardice is not an excuse for evasion and inaction on this life-and-death issue.
Huff Post
The Huffington Post published a slew of editorials and opinion pieces focusing on the availability of “assault weapons” and arguing against the necessity of them — all watered down by political fingerprinting. A piece that seems to encapsulate the general consensus of Huff Post is “Why Gun Control Is Patriotic” by Sanjay Sanghoee, a contributor who regularly writes on Indian politics, art and culture, as well as business. In the editorial he attempted to delve into the psyche of the type of gun owner who buys a weapon like an AR15.
The right to defend oneself makes sense but that should not encompass the right to own weapons of mass destruction, or to endanger the welfare of society. The belief that we need to stockpile guns of every kind to protect us from our own government is a sign of deep paranoia and madness. And to the people who think that way, let me ask you this: do you really believe that if the U.S. government decided for some reason to direct all its military might against you, you would stand a chance against them?
He continues by blaming the National Rifle Association and gun companies for lobbying to make it easier to obtain these weapons all while taking jabs at republicans. Because they are making it easier for crazed gunman to obtain weapons legally, meaning they are aiding in the destruction by advocating the availability of weapons with high capacity magazines. He concludes:
Just because you believe in the right to bear arms does not mean that you have to follow the NRA’s playbook or that you cannot support sensible gun laws. The Second Amendment was designed to ensure our safety, but the way it is interpreted by the gun lobbies endangers our safety instead.
New York Times
Unlike Huff Post, the New York Times takes a much more tame approach — politically at least — as they suggest a compromise.
In the piece “Mourning and Mulling”, columnist Charles M. Blow describes his upbringing in rural Louisiana and how guns were an every day thing as his family consists of hunters and self-defense advocates. But he goes on to question the reasoning behind “assault weapons.”
While I hesitate to issue blanket condemnations about gun ownership — my upbringing simply doesn’t support that — common sense would seem to dictate that it is prudent and wise to consider the place of guns in modern societies. It has been some time since we have needed to raise a militia, but senseless violence is all too common. The right to bear arms is constitutional, but the right to be safe even if you don’t bear arms would seem universal. We must ask ourselves the hard question: Can both rights be equally protected and how can they best be balanced?
And he continues, There are whole swaths of gun owners who don’t use their guns in a criminal way. But many of the people who use guns to commit murder are also law-abiding until they’re not … We shouldn’t simply wait for the bodies to fall to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Blow concludes, as a gun owner, by suggesting his compromise:
One step in the right direction would be to reinstate the assault weapons ban. Even coming from a gun culture, I cannot rationalize the sale of assault weapons to everyday citizens.
… We simply have to take some reasonable steps toward making sure that all our citizens are kept safer — those with guns and those without.
We can’t keep digging graves where common ground should be.
CBS’s Face the Nation
Renowned journalist Bob Schieffer, CBS News’ chief Washington correspondent and anchor of the weekly CBS morning show “Face the Nation”, offered his views in a statement “A new manifesto: ‘Lack of Common Sense'”, a play on Thomas Paine’s essay titled “Common Sense,” which he says he titled because “How else can we account for the current state of affairs?” His argument is that lawmakers should allow actual current events to dictate the debate and, at the very least, begin a conversation without outside influence.
Of course, there are legitimate reasons for people to own guns, for both sport and protection. But doesn’t common sense tell us we must keep guns away from people like the Colorado shooter?
Don’t we all agree on that?
Finding a solution to fix that won’t be easy. But if that is the goal, shouldn’t that be where we start the discussion? Where’s the common sense in not starting there?
This is not about ideology; it is about the safety of innocent people, and going to the movies without fear of being killed.
He then narrows his argument by pinpointing something that he sees as a problem:
… we’ve allowed the lobbyists [like the NRA] and the partisans and the ideologues and, yes, the people who make money out of politics, to take control of the argument and shift it, from common sense to endless hairsplitting, meaningless rhetoric and ideological talking points designed to avoid blame — and fatten campaign war chests.
Common sense doesn’t really fit when the goal is not what’s good for us but what’s good for my side.
Jim Goad
In his column in Taki Mag, an online political magazine, titled “The Joker’s Razor”, author and columnist Jim Goad doesn’t attack guns, gun control, the victims or Cinemark, the company that owns the Century 16 movie theater.
In the wake of Friday morning’s bloodbath at a Colorado movie theater, America struggles to figure out who or what to blame.
They’ve obviously ruled out the shooter.
He continues criticizing the left, right, up and down for pointing fingers without actually knowing what they’re talking about, but he also explains why comics, movies and gun laws aren’t to blame.
Look away from the fact that Mexico has stricter gun laws than the US and a higher gun-homicide rate. Ignore the fact that Switzerland has some of the world’s highest gun-ownership rates and a negligible gun-homicide rate. And don’t even try to compare gun-related murder rates in urban areas that have restrictive gun laws alongside low gun-homicide rates in rural areas where firearms ownership tends to be highest. And blot from your memory banks the fact that there are likely millions of privately owned AR-15 “assault weapons” in America that have never been used to commit mass murder.
Massad Ayoob
Famed gun writer Massad Ayoob was one of the few major gun advocates to write on this event. In his blog on the Backwoods Home Magazine, a publication on self-reliant living, he made a point to chastise CNN, but mainly discussed gun free zones in his posting “And It Happens Again…”
Overlooked by most is a point discovered by famed Constitutional lawyer Don Kates: the theater in question forbade firearms inside. They themselves made it impossible for even one good person in the theater to draw a lawfully-carried handgun and put a bullet through the monster’s brain, to stop the horror and shortstop the tragedy.
Once again, we see that “gun free zones” are hunting preserves for psychopaths who prey on humans.
And a couple days later Ayoob followed up by citing references of where he learned the Century 16 was a gun free zone.
(Note: Ayoob cites anecdotes posted in forums that are several years old. Guns.com contacted Cinemark several times to confirm the company’s official policy, but has yet to get a response. To see the references, click here and here.)
In his follow-up, Ayoob makes a very pragmatic point:
When you make potential rescuers unwelcome, do not blame those potential rescuers for not being there when the disaster happens, and the death toll mounts because what could have stopped the killing has been banned from your establishment.
National Rifle Assocation
Pro-gun groups like the NRA and Gun Owners of America offered very little in terms of debate or defense.
In the midst of all the finger pointing, an NRA spokesman told Guns.com that officials might make a formal statement “when all the facts are in,” but they are not giving interviews about this topic right now.
In addition, over the weekend the organization removed several official Facebook accounts. Guns.com inquired about this, but also was not given an answer. They restored the pages in the afternoon on July 23.
However, the NRA tends to shy away from addressing topical issues at times when its advocacy would probably be questioned, but widely distributes statements on public policy.
Gun Owners of America
GOA published a statement Friday afternoon saying, “Last night’s shooting in Aurora, Colorado was extremely tragic, as more than a dozen people were killed in another Gun Free Kill Zone.” And continued, “…the theater in Aurora reportedly has a “no guns” policy” (Citing the same forum as Ayoob).
And continued saying that the national media latches onto this tragedy — an event that has amassed numerous pro-gun control editorials and comments — while ignoring “stories where the good guy stops the perp!”
Conclusion
Certainly there’s only one person to blame here and it’s the shooter. It isn’t guns and it isn’t a system. But in order to prevent another tragedy like this there has to be some type of solution, but who is going to give it? Who is going to give a sensible answer? And who will listen?
Article originally posted by: Daniel Terrill to view article click here
During the London 2012 Games, nearly 400 competitors are shooting for gold across 15 dramatic events.
Having been practiced competitively for centuries, the tense and demanding sport of Shooting is now popular all over the world.
Did you know?
At Barcelona 1992, China’s Zhang Shan became the first woman to win gold in a mixed-gender Shooting event. After these Games, the ISSF stopped men and women competing against each other.
Between 1896 and 2004, British athletes won 43 Olympic medals in Shooting.
Hungarian shooter Károly Takács was a world-class shooter when, in 1938, his right hand was injured by a grenade. After teaching himself to shoot left-handed, Takács won gold in 1948 and 1952.
There will be around 270,000 clay targets in the Shotgun competition.
15 – across men’s and women’s Rifle, Pistol and Shotgun events.
Number of competitors
390: 223 men and 143 women, 24 to be confirmed
Each country is limited to 28 athletes (20 men and eight women). This equates to two athletes in all events, except for the women’s Trap and Skeet where only one athlete per country is allowed.
Field of play
Athletes shoot at stationary targets in a range in the Rifle and Pistol events, and at moving targets in the Shotgun events.
History of Shooting at the Olympic Games
With the exceptions of the St Louis1904 and Amsterdam 1928 Games, Shooting has featured on every Olympic programme since the first modern Games in 1896. Women’s events were added to the schedule at Los Angeles 1984.
Find out more about Shooting at the Olympic Games on the International Olympic Committee website.
The basics
Olympic Shooting events fall into three disciplines: Rifle, Pistol, and Shotgun events. In Rifle and Pistol events, competitors aim at a 10-ring target from a set distance (10m, 25m or 50m).
Depending on the event, athletes are required to shoot from standing, kneeling or prone (lying down) positions.
In Shotgun events, competitors shoot at moving clay targets launched above and in front of them.
A range officer is responsible for the safe running of the competition. Athletes must listen to their instruction and obey their words of command at all times.
An international jury is present at all events to ensure that shooters stay within the rules and to deal with any appeals.
Keys to success
Shooting is a tense and testing sport that requires immense reserves of skill and nerve. The winning athlete must remain cool under the enormous pressure that an Olympic competition brings.
Jargon buster
Double Trap – Shooting competition in which two clay targets are launched simultaneously in front of the shooter. Pistol – one of three firearms used in Olympic Shooting, and the only one to be shot with one hand. Shoot-off – a tiebreaker. Trap – the device used for launching clay targets into the air. 3 positions – Rifle events in which competitors shoot in standing, kneeling and prone positions.
Get involved
If you want to find out about shooting in your country, including clubs, facilities and coaching schemes, check the website of your National Governing Body. To find out how you can get involved in shooting in the UK, go tothegamesandbeyond.com
For more information on the Shooting competition at London 2012 and the rules, go to the website of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF), the governing body for the sport.
Held at Lord’s Cricket Ground, the Archery competition at the London 2012 Olympic Games will call for pinpoint precision and nerves of steel.
Archery dates back around 10,000 years, when bows and arrows were first used for hunting and warfare, before it developed as a competitive activity in medieval England. A tense and testing sport that requires immense reserves of skill and nerve, Archery is now practised in more than 140 countries around the world.
Did you know?
The first known Archery competition was organised in Finsbury, London, in 1583. It attracted 3,000 participants.
Hollywood actress Geena Davis took part in US trials for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Archery team.
At the Athens 2004 Games, archers competed in the Panathinaiko Stadium, where the first modern Olympic Games took place in 1896. The Stadium was built on the ruins of an ancient stadium built in 329 BC.
In the 14th century, archery was considered so important to the defence of the nation that an English law made it compulsory for every man aged between seven and 60.
The earliest known cricket match played at Lord’s Cricket Ground was 1814.
128: 64 men and 64 women
Each country is limited to six athletes (three men and three women), which equates to three athletes in each individual event and one team of three athletes in each team event.
Field of play
Athletes shoot from the shooting line to the target, 70m away. For the elimination rounds, there are two targets, with each archer or team assigned to one target.
History of Archery at the Olympics
Archery made its Olympic debut at Paris 1900, was dropped from the programme after the London 1908 Games, and then returned for a single appearance in 1920. After a 52-year gap, the sport was reintroduced at Munich 1972 and has remained on the Olympic programme ever since.
Find out more about Archery at the Olympic Games on the International Olympic Committee website.
The basics
The object of the sport is simple: to shoot arrows as close to the centre of a target as possible. Olympic Archery targets are 122cm in diameter, with the gold ring at the centre (worth a maximum 10 points) measuring just 12.2cm. Athletes shoot at the target from a distance of 70m.
Athletes compete with recurve bows, distinctive as the limbs curve outwards at the top.
Men and women compete separately, both as individuals and in teams of three.
All four Archery events are played in a head-to-head elimination format.
At the start of the competition all athletes take part in a ranking round. Athletes must shoot 72 arrows in 12 phases of six arrows each, with each athlete allowed four minutes per phase. The total score of all 72 arrows determines the rankings of each athlete. These are used to make the seedings for both the Individual and the Team events.
Officials
Scoring judges sit in a protected area or blind behind the targets, and come out to score when shooting is complete. Sitting at the opposite end of the range by the shooting line are two spotters, who record each archer’s arrow values with the aid of a telescope.
Keys to success
Archery is a tense and testing sport that requires immense reserves of skill and nerve. The winning athlete will remain cool under the enormous pressure that an Olympic competition brings.
Jargon buster
Boss – the target, usually a square black block made of compacted foam, to which the target face is attached Bowman – an athlete Draw – the act of pulling back the bow string in preparation for shooting Nock – a notch at the end of an arrow that attaches to the bow string
Get involved
If you want to find out about archery in your country, including clubs, facilities and coaching schemes, check the website of your National Governing Body. To find out how you can get involved in archery in the UK, go tothegamesandbeyond.com
For more information on the Archery competition at London 2012 and the rules, go to the website of World Archery Federation, the governing body for the sport.
