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China, Russia dominate World Cup USA; military personnel win USA’s only 2 medals

USA Shooting & U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit

FORT BENNING, Ga. - Two military personnel won the only medals for the United States at the International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup USA May 6 to 15 at the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit’s ranges. Navy Reserve Lt. Eric Uptagrafft, 39, of Longmont, Colo., and Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Elizabeth “Libby” Callahan, 53, of Upper Marlboro, Md., were the only Americans who walked away with medals from the World Cup.

It came down to a half-point difference between the Gold Medal and the Silver Medal in Men’s 50-Meter Free Rifle Prone competition May 11.

Uptagrafft, formerly a Soldier in the Army Marksmanship Unit, and France’s Valerian Sauveplane both equaled the current World Record with their qualifying perfect score of 600 but Sauveplane was able to squeak by with the Gold for France with a 103.3 in the final. Uptagrafft hit a 102.8 in the final to mark the first U.S. medal won at this World Cup. The shooters tied the world record also currently held by USAMU’s Sgt. 1st Class Thomas A. Tamas, a native of Columbus, Ga.

“I am a little disappointed I didn’t win,” said Uptagrafft, who was a 1996 Olympian in this event. “It was the first time I remember ever seeing two 600s shot in a match but I knew I would have to stick a good final to win. I definitely had my work cut out for me. My position felt good, just not perfect.”

Israel’s Guy Starik clinched the Bronze in the prone event. Starik hit a 104.9 in the final to move up from a four-way tie for fourth to third. Tamas, who will be 40 next month, finished in 32nd place with a score of 592.

Callahan, won the Bronze Medal May 13 in Women’s 10-Meter Air Pistol. A retired Washington, D.C., police officer, Callahan was looking at eighth place going into the finals and within 10 shots she had worked her way up to third. Callahan hit a 100.2 in the finals for a total score of 481.2.

“It is great to finally have everything come together, especially in a final,” Callahan said. “I have been struggling in air for a while, so this feels really good. I honestly didn’t expect to move up like I did. I was just concentrating on hitting good scores and it ended up working out really well.”

Viktoria Chaika of Belarus took the Gold Medal. Chaika led going into the final with a 390 and finished with a 491.2 total score. Jasna Sekaric of Serbia and Montenegro clinched the Silver Medal with a score of 484.4.

Rebecca Snyder, 28, of Colorado Springs came in 25th with a qualifying score of 375 and 14-year-old Heather Deppe of San Antonio, Texas, finished 40th with a 357.

Emil Milev of Bulgaria set a new final world record and won the Gold Medal in the Men’s 25-Meter Rapid Fire Pistol event on the last day of the World Cup May 14.

Milev hit a 583 in the qualifying rounds and a 200.2 in the finals for a 783.2 total score and the win. Alexei Klimov of Russia finished with a 779.8 total score for the Silver Medal and Penghui Zhang of China took the Bronze with 778.1.

The top finisher for the USA was Sgt. Keith A. Sanderson of the Army Marksmanship Unit who finished tied for ninth with a 571; Sanderson, 30, is the reigning U.S. National Champion in this event.

In the final event of the World Cup competition, Men’s 50-Meter Three-Position Free Rifle, Juha Hirvi of Finland and Mario Knoegler of Austria ended in a tie. Hirvi finished the qualifying rounds in a first place, shooting a 1,174, but almost gave it away in the end, shooting a 94.5 in the finals for a 1,268.5.

Knoegler went into the finals in third and hit a 96.5 to move up and give Hirvi a run for his money. In the end, however, Hirvi hit a 9.0 in the shoot-off for the Gold, whereas Knoegler got the Silver with a 7.3; Artem Khadjibekov of Russia grabbed the Bronze with a 1,267.7. Uptagrafft was the top finisher for the USA in this event; he tied for 12th place with a 1,164 total score.

China won its fourth Gold Medal May 12 in Men’s 10-Meter Air Rifle. The 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist in this event, Qinan Zhu, worked his way up from eighth in the finals to first with a 104.6 final score. Zhu won with a 699.6 total score, Peter Sidi of Hungary finished in second with a score of 699.5 and Thomas Farnick of Austria clinched third with a 699.1.

The top finishers for the United States were Sgt. 1st Class Jason A. Parker, 30, of the Army Marksmanship Unit. Parker and Matthew Rawlings, 20, of Wharton, Texas, who both hit a 591 and tied for 23rd place. Hawaiian Ryan Tanoue, 22, finished 33rd with a 589.

In the second event of the day, Women’s 50-Meter Three-Position Sport Rifle, Russia’s Tatiana Goldobina took the Gold Medal. She was in second place going into the finals with a 584 and hit a 98.8 to clinch first place. Wen Yin of China grabbed the Silver Medal with a 680.8 total score. Yin went into the finals tied for fourth and was able to hit a 101.8 to walk away second. Olga Dovgun of Kazakhstan fell from first to third after hitting a 96.4 in the finals to finish with a 680.4.

The USA’s Jamie Beyerle, 20, who shoots for the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, made the finals with a qualifying score of 579 and placed fifth with a total score of 676.8. Sarah Blakeslee, 20, of Vancouver, Wash., ended up in 15th place with a 576 and Amber Darland, 24, of Colorado Springs, Colo., finished 29th with a 568.

In the second event to wrap up May 11, Women’s 25-Meter Sport Pistol, China grabbed two more medals. Ying Chen won the Gold with a Final World Record of 204.4 and a total score of 791.4 and her teammate Fengji got the Bronze with a 789.1. Maria Grozdeva of Bulgaria squeezed in there with a 790.3 for the Silver.

Callahan finished in 18th place with a score of 576 out of 600 and Snyder was 23rd with a 574. Navy Reserve Petty Officer 2nd Class Sandra Uptagrafft, 34, wife of the Prone Rifle Silver Medalist, was 31st with a 566.

Russia took two medals in Men’s Air Pistol competition May 11; Vladimir Gontcharov won the Gold with a 687.0 total score and Mikhail Nestruev grabbed a Silver with a 685.2. Franck Dumoulin of France beat Francesco Bruno of Italy with a 684.3 in the shoot-off for the Bronze Medal.

The top USA finisher was Sgt. 1st Class Daryl Szarenski, 37, of the USAMU in 11th place with a 580 out of 600. USAMU’s Staff Sgt. John C. Ennis, 28, finished 27th with a 575 and Brian Beaman, 21, was 50th with a 563.

Zongliang Tan clinched a Gold Medal for China May 10 in Men’s 50-Meter Free Pistol competition. Tan finished the qualifying round with a 572, three points above Martin Tenk of the Czech Republic. Tan went on to hit a 95.8 in the finals, which would be more than enough to walk away with the win. Tenk finished in second place with a 94.8 in the finals and a 663.8 total score.

In third place, the 2004 Olympic Gold medalist in this event, Mikhail Nestruev of Russia, made a big come-from-behind move in the finals to beat Francesco Bruno of Italy with a 662.4 total score. Bruno had a two-point lead going into the finals, but Nestruev took advantage of a couple of poor shots by the Italian in the final to push him off of the medal stand. Dumoulin finished in fourth and Bruno ended up in fifth.

Ennis, the top finisher for the USA, finished in 12th place with a 561 total score. The next USA finisher was Szarenski who finished in 19th place with a 557 and Jason Turner, 30, of Colorado Springs who shot a 556 and ended up in 21st place.

When the first Gold, Silver and Bronze medals of the 2005 World Cup USA were awarded May 9 at Hook Range, three flags of China flew above the medal stand.

Li Du, Yinghui Zhao and Liuxi Wu of China took first second and third place respectively in the Women’s Air Rifle competition. Du and Wu were tied going into the final, each with a score of 398 points out of a possible 400 and Zhao shot the best qualification score with a 399. Du shot a 104, which was the highest finals score, Zhao fired a 103 and Wu a 103.8 out of a possible 109 in the final; this put Wu in third place for the Bronze Medal with a total score of 501.8 and left Du and Zhao tied for first place with a score of 502. Du won the Gold Medal after winning the shoot-off in which she shot a 10.6 and Zhao got a 10.4.

Out of the 58 competitors, Blakeslee finished in 13th place with a score of 394, Emily Caruso, 27, of Colorado Springs was 28th with a 392 and Elizabeth Tidmore, 21, of Decatur, Ga., got 40th place with a 388.

More than 400 world-class shooters from 51 countries competed in the ISSF World Cup USA May 6 to 15. The U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit hosted the World Cup USA and the competition was conducted by USA Shooting, the U.S. Olympic governing body for the Olympic shooting sports and those governed by the ISSF.

Every year, qualified shooters of each of the Olympic shooting disciplines participate in four World Cups. Not only can shooters win medals and set world records at the World Cups, but they can also win quota slots for their countries to compete in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.

The final medal count was: China 9; Russia 6; Austria, Bulgaria, France and USA 2 each; and Belarus, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan and Serbia and Montenegro 1 each. For full results from the World Cup USA, log on to www.usashooting.org.

A sad state of affairs when the nation with the highest legal, civilian gun ownership rate is an also-ran in international shooting.

Jose, in theory I agree with your sentiments.

But the reality is, it is because of our Freedom, that we don't do as well as some other countries. There are numerous types of shooting sports that we can have fun with and still play with guns. In other countries, they only way they can shoot is in the Olympic disciplines. Many of the countries with centralized goverments (or those with former goverments of that ilk whose atheletes are the product of such a system), mandate tests of students nationwide, determine who has the correct aptitiudes or skills to excel at a given sport, and then they are groomed at an early age for that sport. In the US, participation in a sport is SOLELY a personal choice. Practice and dedication is also solely a personal choice. Freedom to do so many different things get in the way of our desire to practice...... It happens. So our Freedom is a great thing, I would'nt want to live without, but it probably is'nt the best system, to dominant in Olympic sports.

Scott, I understand and agree with all your points. It still chaps me, though.

What a stupid excuse ,The Freedom , for the poor results at the World cup!
First, as a country of opportunities we lost the opportunity to have a facility like Wolf Creek Second We dont have World class coaches. Third USA Shooting has more bureaucrats than atlets in the camp!
The results are normal!!

With all due respect to PilkGuns and their role in this website, to use the concept of "freedom" so repeatedly as an excuse for the performance of the host nation is somewhat naive. Are you intimating that foreign shooters are somehow forced into shooting programmes, and forced to train, and forced to compete, and forced to win? The old propaganda line of communist-bloc countries mainstreaming athletes is just that, old. The opportunity for international sports competition is a tremendous incentive for some nationalities. They are hungry for it, and their sports administrators feed that desire, and that's not a bad thing. The West has become "fat and lazy" in many sporting codes, and it shows.

"Freedom" has nothing to do with the USA's performance. To believe so is to take away something from those athletes who travelled from far, to a strange country, and won. That's not right.

If Western countries wish to feature in international events they will need to replace their supposed "freedoms" with a good dose of "hunger and desire".

With all due respect to both wer and HBP, it is my guess that English is not your first language to have so misunderstood what was said.
HPB says
“The opportunity for international sports competition is a tremendous incentive for some nationalities. They are hungry for it, and their sports administrators feed that desire, and that's not a bad thing. The West has become "fat and lazy" in many sporting codes, and it shows. “

and also
”If Western countries wish to feature in international events they will need to replace their supposed "freedoms" with a good dose of "hunger and desire". “

These are corollary arguments to those that I made, and prove my point exactly.

And this statement,
“The old propaganda line of communist-bloc countries mainstreaming athletes is just that, old.”

Old or not, it is still true. I would agree that in 5 or 10 years this may not be case but the atheletes performing at their top levels now most certainly came from such a system, and certainly the Chinese are using this system to great success at the moment and are quite proud of it. And don’t get me wrong, I not saying anything negative about using such a system, it is good resource management in my opinion, nor am I saying anything negative about the Chinese mind you. I believe China’s freedom is on the upswing while we in the US are on the downswing, believe that a lot of Chinese have more freedom than Americans, but not to realize that their centralized government makes such testing come to their advantage is to ignore obvious facts.

HBP wrote:If Western countries wish to feature in international events they will need to replace their supposed "freedoms" with a good dose of "hunger and desire".

It seems that those follks disparaging the lack of US success in Olympic shooting need to look at their own home first. wer, HBP, & Jose, why weren't you on the medal stand? Not enough time to train? Not interested in putting forth the effort it requires? I don't mean this to be confrontational or accusatory, but the same reasons you were not on the medal stand are probably the same reasons that the vast majority of the rest of the shooting/gun owning population was not on the medal stand. It doesn't make much sense to sit at your computer and castigate the rest of the population for not doing what you yourself are not willing to do.

-Ted

I have some questions that may contribute to this discussion. Does anyone have any idea what is the average income of the top shooters from China, Russia, former USSR countries, Germany, Sweden, Finland, USA and other "top" shooting countries (as compared to the national medium income, as absolute numbers would be pretty meaningless)? The numbers that I am after should include what comes from their national federations, bonuses that they receive for winning medals, incentive monies from manufacturers and from other sources. Do most of them have "real" "outside of shooting" jobs that take any significant amount of their time? Do military athletes have "non-shooting" military duties?

What I am trying to determine is to what extent is everyone playing "on the same playing field" and what are the major differences in the overall lifestyle conditions of the various top shooters.

Thanks to Pilkguns,great job.Just my opinion-in our country,in many areas,anti gun sentiment is high,restrictions on shooting ranges,cumbersome restrictions to own pistols,licence difficulty,location of ranges,low exposure and not too much backing of the shooting sports as compared to other sports.I think,these reason,as well as others,are why we don't have as many competitors out there.It seems,in our country,many high participation sports,involve money,and in general,many aspects of shooting are just not that way.

I am the first to admit that I do not have the skills to stand on the winners podium, but I do not agree to using "freedom" as an excuse. I would put it down to my lack of sufficient application to do what needs to be done.

In the original comment made about "freedom's" being a reason for poor performance it implies that the athletes coming from "non free" countries were somehow co-erced into participation. It takes something away from the athletes who did step up on the podiums. They got there through hard work and dedication, which is the route we all need to follow if we wish to share in their success.

Alternatively, if PilkGuns is implying that some nations didn't perform up to expectation because they have more social activities to distract them, then that can't be contested, but why then use the word "freedom" (with all the current political baggage it carries)?

PaulB's question triggered another question for me at least.

Do our top end military shooters have non shooting military duties?? Somehow I always pictured shooters like Zins et al working hard at shooting practice all day long.

In fact I remember reading a quote from Zins that he shoots 100K rounds of ammo per year. How could he have time for anything else??

F. Paul in Denver

Ted Bell wrote:why weren't you on the medal stand? Not enough time to train? Not interested in putting forth the effort it requires? I don't mean this to be confrontational or accusatory, but the same reasons you were not on the medal stand are probably the same reasons that the vast majority of the rest of the shooting/gun owning population was not on the medal stand. It doesn't make much sense to sit at your computer and castigate the rest of the population for not doing what you yourself are not willing to do.

-Ted

I am not a world class athlete. But I compete at the club level as much and as often as my time allows.

The USA's problem is not only that the International level. Most of the traditional shooting sports at the local level (ISSF, NRA highpower and smallbore, NRA pistol) are slowly dying away from lack of participation.

We have well over 50 million gun owners in this country. Hard to get an exact number, since we (thank God) do not have the abomination of national licensing and registration schemes that others have to endure. But we MOST certainly have more than the 4 million or so that are NRA members.

Most gun owners could care less about sport shooting, or even supporting the only organization proven to be effective in protectice our unique right to bear arms. The numbers and results prove that beyond any argument, don't you think?

But if you want to dress like cowboy or a commando wannbe, the shooting sports are doing well.........

HBP wrote:Alternatively, if PilkGuns is implying that some nations didn't perform up to expectation because they have more social activities to distract them, then that can't be contested, but why then use the word "freedom" (with all the current political baggage it carries)?

I took his reference to "freedom" to mean that a shooter in the US has a unlimited number of disciplines to chose from- Bullseye, IDPA, IPSC, High Power Rifle, Cowboy Action, Skeet, Trap, Sporting Clays, International, Black Powder Silhouette, etc., besides the option of just plinking for fun. Thus, while we probably have the greatest number of shooters per capita, the few that do choose to compete on a serious level are diluted over these many disciplines. Compare this to a country that has less "freedom" to shoot when and where and for whatever reason they want to. While I have no first hand knowledge, I suspect that in some of the top countries from the World Cup, the only way you are permitted to have access to a gun is if you are a competitor at some level. Thus, if you have an interest in shooting, you are going to shoot what they tell you to shoot. If in the US you were only able to have access to a gun if you shot an Olympic discipline, I imagine we'd be one of the top three countries in the world.

But, I could be wrong. ;)

-Ted

I think what is meant by "freedom" is that, here, if you WANT to shoot, you buy an SKS and a case of Wolf and head to the desert or the public range, or you put in for Elk tags or you buy a half dozen 9mm pistols (remember, buying one gun a month is not just the law, its your duty!) and shoot 3 times a week at an indoor range, at a full sized silly-wet target at 7 yards.... or you get 2 singla action revolvers, a lever action rifle and a shotgun , boots and a hat and you shoot cowboys ....

go visit a public range and see what and how people shoot!!! I spent many hours this past weekend running our public range!

if you can have soooooooooooooo much fun blasting so many different kinds of guns, why in the world would anyone want to shoot a BB gun one shot at a time for nearly 2 hours!!?!?!??!? (and for what that BB gun costs, Joe Blaster can buy an AK, a Glock, a Ruger, a Taurus AND 500 rds of ammo for each!)

I suspect that right now, the best free pistol shooter in the world (and another 100 nearly as good) is shooting 5 or 10 different big bore pistols and rifles at the public range or in the desert 2 times a week and has never ever heard of "free pistol" never even seen, let alone participated in a competiton of any type.

or maybe the best rapid fire pistol shooter of all time is screamin' whiz at video games and his intolerant soccer-mom mother is terrified of even the word "gun", and he will never in his life be exposed to shooting.

If we could just find and get those guys into training (if such people have the attention span for anything longer than a TV show) we'd have a heck of a shooting team!

We are at a disadvantage, cuz our culture does not make olympic champions into national hero's (every chinese coworker I have spoken to about the subject KNOWS the names of top olympic shooters from china, I'd bet that there is not a single US employee of the 10000+ in my company who could name a single olympic shooter (although a lot of them know what a cross fire is!))

Also, we no longer have a shooting team in every high school. I remember reading an interview with a chinese gold medallist who mentioned tagging along to see a schoolmates shooting team at age 16.

SOOOOO

if we are to change anything, WE have to do it!

50m and 10m match this sunday in Phoenix, tell your friends to come join me!

Poole
http://arizona.rifleshooting.com/

Freedom is freedom. Free to decide if I go to work today, or not. If not, do I decide to go hear music, go hiking , go shooting, etc.

if I want to hear music, do I listne to country, rock, jazz, classical, rap,etc. I want to go hiking, is it the at the mountains, the beach, the woods, etc. If its shooting, then do I want to go plinking, bullseye, cowboy action, Olympic, yada yada.

For most people in the western world, those freedoms represent ways to spend their time in the manner they see fit and get the most pleasure out of. the training required for an Olympic sport has way too much down time for the positive benefits. For people in some other countries, excelling in an Olympic sport, or trying to get there, has positive benefits above the worker in their country. So its worth the effort to them. For most Westerners, its not. or so it seems

Bill Poole wrote: I suspect that right now, the best free pistol shooter in the world (and another 100 nearly as good) is shooting 5 or 10 different big bore pistols and rifles at the public range or in the desert 2 times a week and has never ever heard of "free pistol" never even seen, let alone participated in a competiton of any type.

This is a very thought-provoking topic! While I agree with much of what Scott and Bill have said, I don't think they have gotten to the root of the perceived problem. While the American freedom of choice in shooting venues may dilute the pool of potential shooters, it also does allow any American to pursue ISSF shooting, and certainly we who shoot ISSF must think that it's "fun" or at least greatly rewarding.

Everyone writing about shooting technique and competition acknowledges that "shooting is 90+% mental." Well, the same applies here. The best free pistol shooter in the world will necessarily be the person who wants to be the best and does what it takes to be the best. While Bill obviously meant in the above quote "the best potential free pistol shooter in the world," potential greatness (innate talent) is meaningless, when success depends so much on mental application.

So the question then becomes, why are "all" the potentially great American shooters blasting caps in the dessert? My take on this is that our culture has become one of instant gratification, one in which people who choose to follow a long, tedious and demanding path towards greatness are rarely rewarded, and often scorned. One has only to look at the popular TV shows or the proliferation of gambling casinos to see what modern Americans value.

Thus, I believe, the lack of American success in ISSF shooting is a direct reflection of current American values. And, if that's the case, then it really can't be termed a "problem", except for those few of us who have different values.

FredB

Good statement, FredB.

Fred, I think you are getting closer to the root cause......