Dahl Snags Gold at IPC World Cup

[Thomas Monto]

McKenna Dahl's classmates will be hard pressed to top her "What I did this summer" story - She's starting her senior year of high school as a gold medalist.

Dahl (Arlington, Wash.) picked up the first gold medal of her budding shooting career Sunday in the Falling Target Rifle 2 event at the International Paralympic Committee Shooting World Cup in Bangkok, Thailand.

Falling Target is similar to the shooting discipline of biathlon where the competitor has 2 minutes and 30 seconds to hit five discs of descending size with an air rifle.

John Joss (USAMU/Fort Michael, Ala.), who won a gold medal earlier in the week in R3 10m Air Rifle Prone SH1 Mixed, had another strong finish at the final day of the World Cup Sunday. Joss finished fourth in R6 50m Rifle Prone Mixed SH1 after losing in two shoot-off shots to Jae Yong Sim of South Korea.

Other U.S. team members bringing home medals from this World Cup are Eric Hollen (gold/Colorado Springs, Colo.) and Mike Tagliapietra (bronze/Colorado Springs, Colo.) in Falling Target Pistol.

"The change in the team this year has been dramatic," said Paralympic National Team coach Bob Foth. "We've turned the page from having a couple of competitive shooters to having contenders in almost every event."

The Bangkok IPC Shooting World Cup is the final IPC World Cup event of the season and concluded Sunday. For final results from this event, please visit http://results.sius.com/Events.aspx?Cha ... okThailand.