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USA Shooting World Championship Non-Olympic Event Preview

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2018 10:43 pm
by USA Shooting
Countdown to Changwon: USA Shooting World Championship Non-Olympic Event Preview
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (August 25, 2018)
Seems everything is just bigger in the non-Olympic events contested at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship: The distances are bigger, the calibers are bigger – even the bangs are bigger. In a sport that’s so focused on pinpoint precision, those athletes who shoot the game on a bigger scale will get their chance to shine as they do every four years at the 52nd ISSF World Championship August 31 – September 15 in Changwon, South Korea.

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U.S. athletes have not been strangers to success in the 300m Rifle events, which were once included in the Olympic Games. “300m was once known as the King of the Shooting Events,” said five-time Olympian Lones Wigger. He won the last Olympic gold medal to be awarded in 300m Three-Position Rifle at the 1972 Olympic Games. In the two Olympic Games prior, fellow American Gary Anderson won gold in 300m Three-Position Rifle as well.

And while these events, along with a variety of 25m Pistol events, Women’s Prone Rifle and the recently-nixed Olympic events of Men’s 50m Prone Rifle and Men’s 50m Free Pistol and Double Trap. In all, 24 events (seven Rifle, six Pistol, one Shotgun and 10 Running Target) and 72 medals in the non-Olympic events will be awarded in Changwon. Learn more about the Olympic and non-Olympic events that will be contested at the ISSF World Championship: https://www.issf-sports.org/theissf/cha ... ships.ashx.

At the 51st ISSF World Championship in Granada, Spain in 2014, U.S. athletes won six medals in the non-Olympic events that year. Only two athletes who won individual medals in non-Olympic events in 2014 return to this year’s team: Michael McPhail (Darlington, Wisconsin/U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, pictured) who won bronze in 300m Prone Rifle and Alex Chichkov (Temple Terrace, Florida) who won golds in Junior Men’s 25m Sport Pistol and Junior Men’s 25m Standard Pistol. McPhail will shoot this event once again, in addition to Men’s 50m Three-Position Rifle (an Olympic event) and Men’s 50m Prone Rifle (non-Olympic event). In winning world titles in both Sport and Standard Pistol, Chichkov became the first U.S. Pistol athlete to ever win two World Championship titles at one event. He has since aged out of the Junior division and will compete in Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol (Olympic event), Men’s 25m Standard Pistol and Men’s 25m Centerfire Pistol (both non-Olympic events).

Reya Kempley (Carson City, Nevada) missed a medal in Women’s 300m Prone Rifle at the 2014 World Championships by one point to finish in fifth place. She also finished in ninth place in Women’s 50m Prone Rifle.

“The range was pretty much unreadable in terms of wind and mirage - that’s one advantage USA usually has, since we shoot at more open, windy ranges for high-power stuff,” Kempley said. “It took that advantage away from us and made luck much more of a factor. It was frustrating for us! I hear South Korea is windy, so I’m hoping it’s readable and we have flags and mirage this time we can use.”

Prior to the 2014 World Championship, Kempley helped us create a video explaining the 300m Rifle events: https://youtu.be/bU3UI0qU5uc. (One change to the format since the last World Championship is that now men and women shoot the same number of shots.)

Joe Hein (Mason, Michigan) who was part of the team silver medal he, McPhail and Eric Uptagrafft won in 2014 in 300m Prone Rifle will also compete again in this event.

Perhaps the busiest woman in terms of events in the U.S. team is Sarah Beard (Danville, Indiana). In addition to her Olympic events of Air Rifle, 50m Three-Position Rifle and Air Rifle Mixed Team, she will also shoot the non-Olympic events of 50m Prone Rifle, 300m Prone Rifle and 300m Three-Position Rifle. Beard won silver in Junior Women’s Prone Rifle at the 2010 World Championship.

The youngest athlete in the non-Olympic events will be 13-year-old Braden Peiser (San Angelo, Texas) when he competes in Junior Men’s 50m Prone Rifle. Peiser won silver in the Junior Men’s Prone Rifle event at the recent USA Shooting National Championships.

Check out the complete World Champs U.S. Team preview in the latest edition of USA Shooting News: http://www.usashooting.org/news/usasnew ... index.html.

A complete schedule of events at the ISSF World Championship - Events are listed in local time. Changwon is 13 hours ahead of the U.S. Eastern Time Zone: https://www.issf-sports.org/competition ... hipid=1750.

Finals will be broadcast live via the ISSF Livestream channel: https://livestream.com/ISSF.

Be sure to follow the team online throughout the World Championship:

Keep up with all the action by following USA Shooting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat (@usashooting), or via USA Shooting's website at http://www.usashooting.org.
USA Shooting Team Event HASHTAG: #USASWCH18
For event pictures, go to USA Shooting’s Flickr site