SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic – At his first Pan American Games, William Johnson, II (Woodville, Miss.), won the gold medal and the Olympic quota slot for the United States Friday in the 10m Running Target event at the Sans Souci Shooting Field.
Johnson had led the field of Running Target shooters from the get-go, putting up a 290 in the slow round of competition on Thursday. In today’s fast round he, like most everyone else, dropped a few points. But Johnson had a large enough lead to walk away with the gold finishing with a total 671.5.
“My raw final score was lower than I expected,” Johnson said. “Not that I am disappointed. I got the job done.”
Teammate Armando Ayala (Columbus, Ga.) won the bronze, moving into medal contention by finishing solid with a score of 102.0 in the final round, and beating every other score by more than four points. Overall, he totaled a 666.0, three points ahead of Attila Solti, who was in third before the finals. In 1999, Ayala brought home a silver from the Pan Am’s.
“I just knew I had to run my shot plan,” Ayala said. “I held up mentally, shot for shot, and it’s great. Bill did exactly what he had to do. Winning the quota will take a lot of stress off the team.”
The U.S. Running Target Team competes in only one event at the Pan Am’s. And instead of coming down with the rest of the shooters, Ayala and Johnson spent the last week training at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, in order to maintain their focus.
“Honestly, I’ve been training just for this event for a while,” Johnson said. “But it wasn’t until two or three days after training in Colorado Springs, that I finally felt I was ready.”
For more information, please contact Sara Greenlee at 809-374-9169 or sara.greenlee@usoc.org.
Men’s 10m Running Target
FINAL RESULTS
Qualifying Final
Name Rounds Round Total
1. William Johnson (USA) 574 97.5 671.5
2. Andres Torres Vidal (COL) 571 97.3 668.3
3. Armando Ayala (USA) 564 102.0 666.0
4. Attila Solti (GUA) 568 95.9 663.9
5. Cristian Bermudez (GUA) 556 97.0 653.0
6. Yunior Torres (CUB) 583 98.9 681.9
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