Desert Midwinter Pistol Championships

Three weeks ago at Fort Benning, Georgia, USAS held the Olympic Trials for Free Pistol.  The USA has two quota slots for Beijing in Free Pistol, and I'll be forthright with my bias in rooting for John Zurek to make the 2008 USA Olympic Team.

Along with John Zurek, Jay Shi and yours truly, Jon Milan made the journey east.  Personally, this was my first major Free Pistol match, so I didn't have the aspirations shared by John and Jay.

A final report of the event is at the USA Shooting web site, so I'll just add my comments on the event.

John's first day was spectacular, despite pistol problems leading to an extension of time.  John shot a 562 to take the lead going into the first day's finals. Jay Shi made the finals, also.

Many other shooters had pistol problems, as well.  At the end about a half dozen shooters went beyond the 2 hour limit by having extension time granted for pistol problems.   (Wish I'd known that detail when taking apart my trigger group the third time!)

Jason Turner shot solid and consistent scores on all three days.  Clearly above the rest of the US shooters in this match.  Congratulations, Jason on the event win.

The third final was a nail biter.  This is a prime example of "mental" meaning "nuts."  And that was just for those of us in the stands, watching!  Keith Sanderson had done some number crunching ahead of the final and a few of us knew what John needed to do to make the cut over Daryl Szarenski.   John was solid, and though he had two "loose" shots in the final, he shot a good score, just not enough to beat Daryl.

Sooo close.  While those of us cheering John can't feel the same angst as John after training so hard for so long to come so close -- 1.4 points was the final difference -- the whole event was inspiring.  Congratulations, John for putting up a great score and keeping your cool.   From my distant perspective at the back of the pack, boiling a three day event down to the last two shots among two competitors of this caliber really seems as much up to chance as anything else.  I know John will argue against that perspective, but then that's why I expect he's already thinking about London in 2012.

I know I am... 

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