Women’s Air Pistol ‘Poster Child’ Barely a Teen on the Rise
Three thoughts went
through Carson Saabye’s head after her third-place finish in Women’s Air Pistol at the USA Shooting Nation- al Championships. When the 13-year-old
found out her score made her the youngest-ever mem- ber of the USA Shooting national team, there was a “Wow.” Another “wow” when she learned that meant she was on the USA Shooting World Cup team. The opportunities Carson
has in front of her — to work with USA Shooting coaches and, of course, possibly qualify for the 2016 Olym- pics in Rio de Janeiro — are still a bit shocking for the girl from Larkspur. And though women’s pistol shooting doesn’t receive the attention football or men’s basketball do, Carson’s coaches and family find themselves de- veloping a girl who is a sort- of prodigy. “She’s the poster child for sure,” said Bud Kucera, her coach with National Training Center Junior Shooting Club. At 13, Kucera said, a
shooter who is progress- ing well would be shooting scores around 350 out of 400. At the USA Shooting Na- tionals in Fort Benning, Ga., Carson shot an age-group record 381. Her final-round performance in Women’s Open Air Pistol was better than winning scores at the past three World Cups. “I was kind of hoping to
perform a little better,” Car- son said.
62
Carson competes against adults and wins. She’s shown that in events she’s traveled for and at the Olym- pic Training Center, where she’ll sometimes face off against resident athletes. But she’s very much a young girl.
At junior club practice, a
bright, multicolored plastic belt completed her outfit. During a break, Carson told a friend about an exhaust- ing shooting session
she
recently completed, adding with the dramatic flourish of a teenager, “I almost died.” “We’re still responsible
for raising her,” her father said. “We don’t want to lose that balance.” She plays softball and said school is her foremost priority.
But she also said she “might not be a normal kid.” She sometimes misses out on birthday parties and trips to amusement parks. Shoot- ing practices come first. “I’m getting so many op-
portunities other kids aren’t getting,” she said. “I can’t re- ally pass them up.” She isn’t jumping at every
competition in her reach, though. After Nationals, she was
offered a chance to go to Azerbaijan to compete for the United States in an Au- gust World Cup competition. Shooters at World Cups can qualify for the upcoming Summer Olympics if they score high enough, but Car- son and her parents didn’t accept the invitation.
USA Shooting News | September 2015
Reprinted with Permission From The Colorado Springs Gazette
An adult would need to
travel with her to competi- tions, and USA Shooting only covers the costs of its team members’ travel. And Eric said a large-scale competi- tion is a lot of pressure to put on his daughter. Sure, Carson said, she can shoot a 388 occasion- ally, but she isn’t confident she can do it consistently. And she wouldn’t want a fluke performance getting her to the Olympics, putting her past a more experienced competitor who has a better shot at earning a medal. When she does try for an
Olympics, she wants to be confident she’ll make it to the Final.
She said her current goal
is shooting 386 consistent- ly. She prefers thinking of things this way — focusing the outcome on her indi- vidual performance, rather than in terms of placing. She can only determine how she shoots, not how her compet- itors do. Eric, a sport rifle shooter,
has talked with his daughter about the mental aspect of performance. He wants her to worry only about control- ling what she can. But that makes her new-
found opportunities, as she said, “a little scary.” The larger the competitions, the bigger the moment, the less she can control. “She understands it,” Eric said of the attention his daughter is receiving, “but she is not enjoying the pro- cess.”
When Carson is directed
to a television reporter, her eyes widen and she makes a sudden, frightened turn away from the public rela- tions director giving her in- structions. “I’ve seen several young
girls that went through the same
thing fail because
they were pushed too fast,” Kucera said when asked about Carson’s progression. She’s only three years into a sport that it’s not unheard of for shooters to compete at an international level into their 50s. Kucera said he agreed
with the choice to not go to Azerbaijan, pointing out the obvious: “She has a long time to go.” However, there is a chance — it’s unclear how small — Carson makes a run at the upcoming Summer Games. There’s a March 2016 World Cup competi- tion in Thailand, where she can shoot a qualifying score for the Olympics. She and her father will evaluate her performance as that compe- tition approaches. At practice, she looked
over a score sheet with her dad.
“The first one looks bad,”
she said, referring to one of the targets with results plot- ted on it. Carson shot a 383. It’s a
world-class score. But success is relative
when you’re 13 with prodi- gious skills.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68