Watch the video below to learn about the kneeling position, as explained by National Paralympic Coach Bob Foth and 2012 Olympian Amanda Furrer. Three-time Olympian and Silver Medalist Bob Foth details the proper techniques (both body position and gun-handling) for kneeling position shooting. Putting Foth’s coaching tips into practice, three-Position smallbore shooter Amanda Furrer demonstrates how to properly shoot from a kneeling position using a .22LR match rifle.
Amanda, a member of the 2012 U.S. Olympic team, shows how to set up the right body position when kneeling, how to support the rifle, and how to relax breathing to steady the shot. This takes practice, but remarkable accuracy can be achieved from the kneeling position by top-level shooters. This is a great video, well worth watching.
The video uses superimposed graphics and diagrams to show rifle hardware/sights, and key aspects of the head position, sling set-up, and hold. If you are a position shooter, this is a “must-watch” video. Narrated by Olympian Bob Foth, it is very informative.
Watch Kneeling Position Video
As a member of the U.S. Olympic Team, Amanda Furrer competed in the Womens 3P 50m event at the 2012 Olympics, finishing 15th. Amanda first started shooting at 11 years old with the Spokane Junior Rifle Team. Shooting is a family sport and all compete and shoot guns together. Furrer’s father shoots tactical matches and her mom shoots pistols. Amanda qualified for the national team as a member of the 2007 Pan American Team at the age of 16. She won bronze in the 2011 National Championships. Amanda is currently a student at Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business, majoring in Finance and competing on the Rifle Team.
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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.
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Kim Rhode “delivered the goods” on Sunday, winning the Gold Medal in women’s skeet shooting. By earning Gold in 2012, Rhode became the first USA athlete to win an individual medal in five (5) successive Olympic games. Congrats to Kim, who earned her 2012 Gold medal with a spectacular performance, scoring 99 out of 100. This tied the all-time World Record and set a new Olympic record.
Kim hit 65 clays in a row before her first miss. She went 25-for-25 in her first two Qualifying sessions, finishing 74-for-75 in Qualifying, also a new Olympic Record. This gave Rhode a 4-point lead heading into the finals. Not flinching under pressure, Rhode “cleaned” her final run, hitting all 25 Clays without a miss to secure a well-deserved Gold Medal.
“It’s just been an incredible journey,” said Rhode. “And ultimately, I couldn’t be happier for bringing home the gold for the United States.” This is the fifth time Rhode has earned a shotgun shooting medal at the Olympics. As a teenager in 1996 she won the double-trap gold medal at the Atlanta Olympic Games. At the Sydney Olympics four years later she took bronze in double trap. Kim then topped all double-trap competitors to win gold at Athens, Greece in 2004, and Kim took the silver medal in skeet at Beijing in 2008.
At the 2012 London games, Rhode won Gold in dominant fashion, as she went 99 for 100 to win by four points while smashing the old 93-point Olympic Record. Wei Ning of China took silver with 91 points and Danka Bartekova of Slovakia took the bronze in a shoot-out with Marina Belikova of Russia after Danka and Marina tied with 90 points.
Photo Courtesy USA Shooting.
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The 2012 London Olympic Games commence this Friday, July 27th. Among the thousands of Olympic athletes competing in London will be talented American rifle, pistol, and shotgun competitors. America fields a very strong team, and Team USA hopes to earn medals in many shooting events. To help fans back home follow our team members, USA Shooting has created an excellent 66-page guidebook that profiles America’s 2012 Olympic Shooting Team. This provides background info on all our 2012 U.S. Olympic/Paralympic shooting Team members. To view the USA Shooting Olympic Preview eZine, click the cover photo at right or the link below. Or, if you become a supporting member of USA Shooting, you can get a hard copy edition. USA Shooting, a 501c3 non-profit corporation, was chartered by the U.S. Olympic Committee as the National Governing Body for the sport of shooting in the United States.
Wounded Warrior Will Compete for Team USA at London Paralympic Games
The video below is an inspirational story about 2012 Paralympic Team USA member SFC Josh Olson. Now serving with the USAMU, wounded Iraq war veteran Josh Olson recently qualified to represent Team USA in shooting at the 2012 London Paralympic Games. In this video, Josh talks about his service in the military and the night in Iraq when he lost his leg during an ambush. Josh, who took up shooting as a sport during rehab at Walter Reed, hopes he can inspire other wounded veterans through his performance in London. Editor’s NOTE: This really is an outstanding video. I strongly recommend you take the time to watch it.
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Alan Bell, the “Chief Starter” for track events at the 2012 London Olympics, has been called one of the “world’s top race starters“. Over the past 36 years, using his trusty blank-firing starter pistols, Alan has started over 25,000 events, including Olympic and World Championship races. Bell, the current Chairman of the IAAF International Starters Panel, is widely recognized as one of the most capable (and knowledgeable) race starters on the planet.
However, the regional Council in West Dunbartonshire (Scotland) recently decided that Bell should not be allowed to start a running race at a local elementary school. Bell had originally been invited as an Olympic VIP for the benefit of the student athletes in this small community near Glasgow. Bell was even planning to start the school race by firing the same starter pistol which will be used to start the 100m Finals in the 2012 summer Olympic Games.
Why did the West Dunbartonshire Council send Bell home? It’s all about gun-phobia. Council members feared “that the sound of a pistol discharge would frighten the children and, perhaps, psychologically scar them forever”. (Source: Outdoor Life Blog).
As might be expected, some locals lambasted the Council’s action. One parent told The Scottish Sun: “It was ridiculous. We were told that the children would be distressed by Mr Bell firing his starting pistol. Anyone who believes they would be frightened by a starting pistol has never experienced the noise at a typical three-year-old’s birthday party.” So worried was the Council over the firing of a starter pistol (which shoots blanks with no projectile), that it tried to find a “politically correct” alternative. One proposed solution was to use an iPod to play a recording of a starting pistol. The school’s administrators eventually decided to start the race with a Klaxon horn noise instead of the crack of a starter’s pistol.
Score one more victory for the gunphobic Nanny State. One wonders if the West Dunbartonshire Council’s next move will be to ban local broadcasts of the actual Olympic Games, so the sound of a starter’s gun on television will not traumatize young viewers.
The rifle shooters who will represent the United States at the 2012 London Olympics are currently profiled on the RifleShooter magazine website. Log on to RifleShooterMag.com to read about Team USA’s Olympians who will be competing in Air Rifle and Smallbore (.22LR Rimfire) events in London next month. The Olympic selection process recently concluded, and we now know the talented men and women who made the cut. CLICK HERE to read bios of individual athletes.
Men’s Rifle Team
Matt Emmons, 50m 3P 10m Air Rifle
Jonathan Hall, 10m Air Rifle
Michael McPhail, 50m Prone
Josh Olson, Paralympic R3, R6
Jason Parker, 50m 3P
Eric Uptagrafft, 50m prone
Women’s Rifle Team
Jamie Beyerle Gray, 50m 3P 10m Air Rifle
Amanda Furrer, 50m 3P
Sara Scherer, 10m Air Rifle
Story find by EdLongrange. We welcome reader submissions.
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Results from a recent international air rifle competition bode well for Team USA’s prospects at the 2012 London Olympic Games. In the women’s 10m Air Rifle event, a talented trio of young American lady shooters won the team silver medal at the International Shooting Competition of Hanover (Germany). Congrats to the three Hanover Silver Medalists: Amanda Furrer (393), Emily Holsopple (389), and Amy Sowash (393).
Good luck ladies on your quest for Gold in London this summer! The Olympic Games kick off Friday, July 27, 2012. Olympic shooting matches will be held 28 July through 5 August at the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich. 390 shooter-athletes will take part. Rifle events will include 10m air rifle (men, women), 50m three-position rifle (men, women), and 50m rifle prone (men only).
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Watch the video below to learn about the kneeling position, as explained by National Paralympic Coach Bob Foth and 2012 Olympian Amanda Furrer. Three-time Olympian and Silver Medalist Bob Foth details the proper techniques (both body position and gun-handling) for kneeling position shooting. Putting Foth’s coaching tips into practice, three-Position smallbore shooter Amanda Furrer demonstrates how to properly shoot from a kneeling position using a .22LR match rifle.
Kim Rhode “delivered the goods” on Sunday, winning the Gold Medal in women’s skeet shooting. By earning Gold in 2012, Rhode became the first USA athlete to win an individual medal in five (5) successive Olympic games. Congrats to Kim, who earned her 2012 Gold medal with a spectacular performance, scoring 99 out of 100. This tied the all-time World Record and set a new Olympic record.
Alan Bell, the “Chief Starter” for track events at the 2012 London Olympics, has been called one of the “
As might be expected, some locals lambasted the Council’s action. One parent told The Scottish Sun: “It was ridiculous. We were told that the children would be distressed by Mr Bell firing his starting pistol. Anyone who believes they would be frightened by a starting pistol has never experienced the noise at a typical three-year-old’s birthday party.” So worried was the Council over the firing of a starter pistol (which shoots blanks with no projectile), that it tried to find a “politically correct” alternative. One proposed solution was to use an iPod to play a recording of a starting pistol. The school’s administrators eventually decided to start the race with a Klaxon horn noise instead of the crack of a starter’s pistol.
Results from a recent international air rifle competition bode well for Team USA’s prospects at the 2012 London Olympic Games. In the women’s 10m Air Rifle event, a talented trio of young American lady shooters won the team silver medal at the International Shooting Competition of Hanover (Germany). Congrats to the three Hanover Silver Medalists: Amanda Furrer (393), Emily Holsopple (389), and Amy Sowash (393).
