Jamie Gray Wins Gold Medal in 50m Three-Position Rifle
Jamie Gray won the Gold Medal in women’s 50m three-position rifle today at the Royal Artillery Barracks in London. Jamie finished with a score of 691.9, a new Olympic record. Fittingly, Jamie secured the Gold Medal with a 10.8 on her last shot in the finals, just 0.1 shy of a perfect score. “I’ve worked on taking that last shot for four years,” she said. “It was almost a moment of relief… I knew it was a good one.” Jamie finished 4.4 points ahead of Silver Medalist Ivana Maksimovic of Serbia. The Czech Republic’s Adela Sykorova took the Bronze medal, 8.9 points behind Gray. You can watch the Women’s 50m Three Position Finals on the NBC Olympics Website (internet service provider log-in required).
Jamie shot great throughout the competition and headed into finals with a two-point lead over her competitors. Gray’s qualifying score was 592, also an Olympic record. This was Jamie’s second appearance in the Olympics, and she has made great progress in the past four years. In Beijing in 2008, Jamie finished fifth in three-position rifle, and fourth in air rifle. After winning Gold in Londson, Jamie said: “This is a dream come true. I made a plan and I stuck to it.”
Two Gold Medal-Winning Room-Mates
At the Olympic Athletes Village in London, Jamie shares a room with Kim Rhode, who won Gold in Women’s Skeet Shooting. Perhaps that pairing brought good luck to both ladies. Team USA now has three Gold medals in shooting, the team’s best performance since 1984.
Earlier this spring, in a USA Shooting interview, Jamie talked about Olympic shooting competition which divides male and female shooters into two divisions: “I am a born competitor and whether it is men or women I want to win. In a sport that is equal between men and women I would most definitely enjoy the competition. I started out only knowing that men and women compete against each other. It wasn’t until I learned shooting was an Olympic sport that I realized men and women didn’t compete against each other. It is exciting to me that there are still sports out there that men and women can be equal, however for other reasons it may be better that there are different categories for each.”
Jamie began shooting in a BB gun program at 8 years old. An all-round athlete, as a high school student, she played varsity soccer, basketball and softball. Jamie graduated from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and shot for its nationally-renowned rifle team. She is currently the technical coach for the Columbus State University Rifle Team. Jamie is married to another shooter, USAMU SSG Hank Gray. Jamie, who originally hails from Lebanon, PA, competed as Jamie Beyerle before her marriage.
