COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (September 21, 2018)
The World Cup season continues for the Paralympic athletes of the USA Shooting Team as five of them head to Chateauroux, France to compete in the final World Shooting Para Sport (WSPS) World Cup of 2018 starting Monday and running through September 30.
This World Cup is the first major event on the WSPS circuit since the World Championship in May in Cheongju, South Korea. More than 200 athletes from 43 countries will compete for World Cup medals, as well as quotas for the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, Japan. A quota is essentially a country’s ticket for an athlete to compete in a given event at the Paralympic Games. The United States failed to win any quotas at the World Championship and will look to make up ground in Chateauroux.
Among those competing for the United States will be the top finisher for the U.S. at the World Championship, Kevin Nguyen (Westminster, California/U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, pictured). Nguyen finished in ninth place in R6 (Mixed 50m Rifle Prone SH1), just .4 point out of a potential Finals berth. He will compete in R6 as well as R3 (Mixed 10m Air Rifle Prone SH1). Also competing will be 2016 Paralympic bronze medalist McKenna Dahl (Arlington, Washington) who will not only compete in her medal-winning event of R5 (Mixed 10m Air Rifle Prone SH2), but R4 (Mixed 10m Air Rifle Standing SH2) and the newest Paralympic Games shooting event, R9 (Mixed 50m Rifle Prone SH2) in which Dahl won gold at the WSPS-sanctioned event at the USA Shooting National Championships.
Rounding out the Rifle team will be 2016 Paralympian John Joss (Corsicana, Texas/USAMU) and Taylor Farmer (Castalia, Ohio). Joss’ most-recent World Cup medal finish was when he won bronze in R6 at the final World Cup of 2017 in Bangkok, Thailand. He also finished in fifth place in R6 at the 2016 Paralympic Games. Relative newcomer Farmer made her overseas debut at the World Championship where she finished in 14th place in R2 (10m Women’s Air Rifle Standing SH1). Joss will compete in R6, with Farmer competing in the Air Rifle events as well as R6.
The lone Pistol competitor will be 2016 Paralympian Marco DeLaRosa (San Antonio, Texas). DeLaRosa will compete in P1 (Men’s 10m Air Pistol SH1) and P3 (Mixed 25m Pistol SH1).
Watch feature stories on Dahl and DeLaRosa, produced with our partners at Media Lodge and 4Outdoors: http://www.usashooting.org/11-resources ... eo-content.
Follow live results from the WSPS World Cup: http://results.sius.com/Championships.aspx and on the WSPS website: https://www.paralympic.org/shooting.