37-Year-Old Whips Young Guns at USA Shooting Championships

Justin Tracy wasn’t prepared to be standing on top of the podium at the USA Shooting Championsihps. The 37-year-old from Farmington, NY, didn’t start competitive shooting until well after his college years and only had minimal military experience as a part-time member of the New York Air Guard.

Yet the relative newcomer to the sport beat a field of competitors dotted with Olympians and World Cup medalists to find himself atop the podium with a National Champion title in the Men’s Prone Rifle event at the USA Shooting National Championships. Tracy has a two-day aggregate score of 1256.9 points and has earned himself a spot on the National Team as well.

“I was one of the few shooters in yesterday’s final that was in today’s final so that gave me a real advantage and I just ran with it!” said Tracy. “Before Spain I’m going to need to definitely work on shooting under pressure- I saw some weak points I had, getting a shaky trigger finger with nerves, so I’ll need to work on things like that!”

Rounding out the podium in second place is four-time Olympian and U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) shooter Jason Parker with a score of 1253.5. Parker took gold in the Men’s Three-Position Rifle event earlier this week. In third was National Junior Team member Daniel Lowe with 1251.3 points.

Two other new National Champions in prone rifle shooting were also crowned. On the Women’s Prone Rifle side, National Team member Sarah Beard took home her second medal of the week with a first-place finish of 1248 points. In the Junior Men’s Prone event, Kevin Sui took gold with 1246 points.

New members to the National and Developmental Paralympic teams were welcomed at events yesterday and today with eight new athletes being named to the Paralympic Development Team and one new athlete named to the Paralympic National Team.

Rifle Competition in rifle now moves to Men’s Air and Women’s Three-Position over the next two days. View all photos from the USA Shooting National Championships for Rifle & Pistol at www.flickr.com/usashooting. To view results for all disciplines, CLICK HERE for USA Shooting Championships scores.