Rocky Mountain Rifl e Champs Showcase New Finals Format to the Favor of Some
The rules have changed and
so too has the game of com- petitive shooting as witnessed by competitors at the 2013 Rocky Mountain Rifl e Championships in Colorado Springs. Five cham- pions in all were crowned among the 40-plus competitors as the 2013 competitive season for USA Shooting got underway. Gone are the days in which
elite shooters could jump out to a big lead in qualifying and strengthen their position in the fi nal. With the newly instituted rules put in place by the sport’s international federation, the In- ternational Shooting Sport Fed- eration (ISSF), the mere ability to be one of the seven fi nalists gives you as equal a shot as anyone else. Case in point, in three of the fi ve fi nals, shooters who stood 35, 20 and 19 points out of fi rst after qualifying scored a high enough fi nals in the new zero-start format to come back and win the event. Previously, all qualifying scores carried over to the fi nals, but now under the
new rules being implemented, all fi nalists start with a “zero” score and the results of the fi nal deter- mine the winner. “This new zero-start fi nal re-
ally shook up a veteran fi eld,” noted USA Shooting Director of Operations Dave Johnson. “This event served as a great oppor- tunity to train athletes, staff and offi cials in a low-key environment on a new system. The results ultimately highlight the game- changing effects this type of for- mat will have on all of us and the shooters in particular will have to adjust accordingly.” Dan Geer (Colorado Springs,
Colo.) was 35 points down and in sixth position behind qualify- ing leader Dempster Christenson (Sioux Falls, S.D.) in Men’s Air Rifl e, only to outscore everyone in a 20-shot fi nal. Christenson, owning a six-shot advantage af- ter qualifying, would fail to med- al, fi nishing fi fth. Shawn McKenna (Colorado Springs, Colo.) and Nicholas Daviscourt (Lone Tree, Colo.) would fi nish second and
48 USA Shooting News | Spring 2013
third respectively. Christenson, a recent addi-
tion to the National Development Team, came out on both sides of the new fi nals format having overcome a poor qualifying total the previous day in Men’s Prone Rifl e event. Qualifying 19 points lower than the qualifying leader and four-time Olympian Jason Parker (USAMU/Omaha, Neb.), Christenson would out-shoot two Olympians including Mi- chael McPhail (USAMU/Darling- ton, Wis.) to capture the victory. Christenson’s two medals on the weekend were the most of any of the competitors in the men’s division.
USAMU’s Hank Gray (Bel-
grade, Mont.) also used the new zero-start fi nals format to win the Men’s 3-position. Down 20 points after qualifying, Gray would out-shoot Christenson by .8 points to win gold. National Junior Team member Daniel Lowe (Olympia, Wash.) fi nished third behind Gray and Christenson in the Men’s 3P event.
The women’s events wouldn’t
carry the same dramatic turnover as the men’s events saw. Rachel Martin (Peralta, N.M.) and Japa- nese shooter Seiko Iwata battled for top honors in two events among the female entrants com- peting. Martin scored a victory in Women’s Air Rifl e and a third place in three-position. Iwata, meanwhile, won the 3P event and fi nished second to Martin in Air Rifl e. Erin Lorenzen (Fort Wayne,
Ind.) was the highest ranking U.S. shooter fi nishing second behind Iwata in Women’s 3P while Minden Miles (Weatherford, Texas) picked up a bronze medal in Women’s Air Rifl e to round out the weekend’s medalists.
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