Got a minute — one minute and six seconds to be precise? Then you should watch this excellent “trailer” video from the International Shooting Sports Federation (ISSF) TV channel. You’ll see virtually all the major Olympic/International shooting disciplines. Even if you’re not a skeet/trap shooter you’ll enjoy the clips of shotgun champions at the top of their game. And the footage of position rifle shooters reveals the intense concentration required in that discipline. We really enjoyed this short clip. The MTV-style editing and soundtrack holds your attention, and the cameramen did a great job of capturing the exact moments when shooters took the winning shot. Enjoy.
Great Video — Highly Recommended — Shows Rifle, Pistol, and Shotgun Champions…
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Dave Miller, shotgun product manager for CZ-USA, recently set a Guinness World Record by hitting 3,653 clay targets in one hour. That’s one bird every 0.985 seconds for 60 minutes straight! Miller rotated through 30 shotguns, prepped by a team of assistants. In setting the new record at the first-ever Clays for Kids event, Miller raised more than $80,000 for Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever’s youth shooting programs.
Miller maintained an astonishing rate of sixty clays busted every minute. To achieve that rate of fire, Miller developed a special style of shooting, firing from the hip rather from the shoulder. He also had 24 helpers loading his arsenal of CZ semi-auto shotguns (which held up to 16 shells each). Miller told reporters: “I had 30 shotguns that I was using. There [were] 60 feet of tables with 5,000 shotgun shells on top of them. They would load them, and just pass them up here, I’d empty them and they’d go back in the assembly line”.
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 USA Shooting Men’s Skeet Team, comprised of Vincent Hancock, Jon Michael McGrath, and Frank Thompson, tied the World Record in Men’s Skeet while capturing the gold medal at the ISSF World Cup recently held in Concepcion, Chile. Hancock is the reigning Olympic Gold Medalist in Skeet and Jon Michael McGrath is the 2010 World Champion in Men’s Junior Skeet. Out of a possible 125 targets (per shooter), Thompson nailed 123, Hancock hit 122, and McGrath shot 121 — for a combined team score of 366/375. That equaled the world record set by Team USA at the 2009 World Championship in Slovenia.
Jan Sychra Wins Individual Skeet Gold Medal with Perfect Score
At the same World Cup match in Chile, Jan Sychra (Czech Republic) won the Men’s Skeet event, scoring a perfect 150 hits out of 150 targets in the final, equaling a world record. The Czech shooter also secured an Olympic Quota Place, a qualification spot at the 2012 London Games.
“I did not believe the 150 record was possible!”, the Czech shooter said after the award ceremony. The record was first set in 2007 by American Vincent Hancock. Hancock’s record had subsequently been tied twice by Norway’s Tore Brovold. So Sychra is now the third man ever to shoot 150/150 in a skeet finals.
The USA team finished just short of individual medals. The USA Shooting Team has the youngest men’s team competing in the ISSF World Cup Series and at the World Clay Target Championships in Belgrade, Serbia later this year.
Next Stop — Sydney, Australia
The USA Team returns home for a few days before traveling to the next stop in the ISSF World Cup series March 22 – April 1, 2011 in Sydney, Australia. The Sydney World Cup has 64 nations represented with 721 competitors in the Olympic sports of rifle, pistol and shotgun.
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At the 50th ISSF World Shooting Championship in Munich, American Joshua Richmond shot a perfect 50 in the finals to win the Double Trap World Championship. Shattering 50 out of 50 targets in the final stage, Richmond hit 196 total targets overall (out of 200 possible), equaling the current ISSF World Record record set last year. That record was set by China’s Hu Binyuan, who took the bronze in Munich, after Russia’s Vasily Mosin captured the Silver Medal in a tie-breaker shoot-off. Richmond’s victory secured an important Olympic Quota Place for Team USA. Josh is currently a member of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) at Ft. Benning, Georgia.
You can watch Richmond’s amazing record-tying performance on the ISSF-Sports.org website. CLICK this LINK, then select “Final Double Trap Men” on the Right.
After Richmond’s final match he was surrounded by his American team-mates, who celebrated the first Olympic Quota won by the US Shotgun Team in this World Championship. Richmond told the ISSF press team: “It feels simply great! To win a World title, equaling the world record and securing Olympic Quota place… I still don’t know how I made it! I [was] Junior World Champion in 2005… to win a title in the open category five years later is a dream come true!”
Top photo courtesy USAShooting.com
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From an upcoming documentary, here’s a nice clip about young women who are involved in the shooting sports. We think this is the kind of positive story that needs to be told by organizations such as the NRA. A variety of teen female shooters are interviewed, including a World Champion Skeet Shooter. Many of the girls mentioned that shooting gave them “a chance to spend fun time with [their] dad.” Others noted that shooting gave them a chance to train and compete with adults, and that was very fulfilling.
The video reveals that, “since 2004, the number of elementary and high school girls competing in shooting sports has increased by 178%.” If you enjoyed this trailer and want to learn more about the feature documentary, “A Girl and a Gun” by Cathryne Czubek, visit AGirlandaGunfilm.com. Producer/Director Czubek notes: “Women and guns have been inexplicably linked throughout American history, but a recent spurt in female gun-ownership begs a closer examination into what’s driving this trend.”
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.
At the 50th 
