Rio 2016

[Thomas Monto]

Joss Finishes Fifth to Close Shooting Events at Paralympic Games




RIO DE JANEIRO (September 14, 2016) - John Joss posted the highest finish for an American man in Shooting at the 2016 Paralympic Games when he finished in fifth place today in the R6 (Mixed 50m Rifle Prone SH1) event on the final day of Shooting competition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Joss (U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit/Corsicana, Texas), a first-time Paralympian, finished Qualification in sixth place through blustery conditions at the Centro Nacional de Tiro Esportivo with a score of 617.4. National Paralympic Coach Bob Foth said Joss was making a lot of smart decisions throughout the Qualification match in reading the way the wind swirled throughout the shooting center.

Once in the indoor Finals Hall, a 9.3 and 9 on the sixth shot series eliminated Joss from the match.

“This is totally different than anything I’ve ever done before,” Joss said following the Final. “I felt calm and on fire at the same time! I know I was working with a kind of shaky hold. I was making smart decisions, but there isn’t much I could do at the end. I did the best I could and I really took a lot out of it. It’s hard to hit a target that small, alone then when you have an elevated heart rate, a pulse in your hand and your front sight starts moving around – it makes it a lot harder!”

Prior to the Paralympic Games, Joss’ highest international finish in the R6 event was when he won silver at the 2015 International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Shooting World Cup in Sydney, Australia. He also finished in sixth place at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Smallbore in the Prone Rifle event in April.

Cuiping Zhang of China edged out Abdulla Sultan Alaryani of the United Arab Emirates who won silver and Laslo Suranji of Serbia won bronze. For Finals results from the R6 competition, please visit: https://www.rio2016.com/en/paralympics/ ... -sh1-final.

In the final Shooting event of the Paralympic Games – the P4 (Mixed 50m Pistol SH1) event - Michael Tagliapietra (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin) also had to battle the breezy conditions to finish in 33rd place with a score of 482.

In the P4 event, Sareh Javanmardidodmani of Iran won gold, Chao Yang of China won silver and Oleksii Denysiuk of Ukraine won bronze.

The eight Shooting athletes of Team USA finished the Paralympic Games with a bronze-medal win by McKenna Dahl (Arlington, Washington) in yesterday’s R5 (Mixed 10m Air Rifle Prone SH2) event.

For complete results from the Shooting events at the Paralympic Games, please visit https://www.rio2016.com/en/paralympics/shooting.