Olympic Shooting

[JSmith]

I watched some of the men's 50-meter prone rifle on streaming video earlier. A 49-year-old shooter from Belarus won, with a world-record score. That was some phenomenal shooting!

Shooting is one sport in which proficiency does not have to deteriorate with age. Now I have to go get my eyes checked, to compensate for my age.

 

[Axel Larson]

I used that same headline when I asked about skeet. some people misunderstood the headline (understandable) until the read the rest of the post.

 

[Acera]

Oscar Swahn won a gold medal in shooting when he was 64 years old. Others have competed into their 70's.

The way Kim Rhode is shooting she may pass him. She is the only American to win an Olympic medal in 5 consecutive games (yeah she's been competing at that level for 20+ years), and will be training from Rio as soon as she finishes in London.

 

[oneounceload]

Oscar's last medal was won when he was 72

 

[Acera]

One more thing, did you all know that more countries participate in Olympic shooting than in any other sport?

We tend to think of America as the epicenter of everything gun related, but the rest of the world takes their shooting seriously.

 

[rcmodel]

but the rest of the world takes their shooting seriously.

The NBC Olympic coverage sure doesn't though.

You would never know there are shooting sports, or that the USA has already won some gold in them!

I still think Kim Rhode, Sgt. Vincent Hancock, and all the shooting sports people are winning purple barbed shafts with barb wire clusters instead of gold medals in the news coverage.

CCN had a photo spread of all the USA gold medal winners so far this year.
And Kim Rhode or Sgt. Vincent Hancock wasn't in it.

The NBC talking heads had a segment yesterday of all the repeat medal winners who had won at more then one Olympic games, and Kim Rhode wasn't mentioned.

That right there just ain't right!

rc

 

[Acera]

Sadly rc you are correct.

I however have been in the unique position to be working from home this week, and have had the TV on in the background most of the time with the Olympics on.

I did see Kim Rhode and Vincent Hancock's gold medal ceremonies. I was surprised to hear Kim's name a few times on the daytime broadcast. They have mentioned that she is the fist American to ever win medals in 5 Olympics a couple of times. Can't attest to the nighttime shows, but any mention is a positive. Shooting is just not as sexy as some of the other sports in their minds.

Hopefully we will see some better coverage on some of the cable shows.

 

[JSmith]

The NBC Olympic coverage sure doesn't though.

We can't have people going around thinking shooting is a wholesome, enjoyable activity, now can we?

 

[Capybara]

NBC = biased, self-important, greedy, politically correct idiots. It is a huge insult to ignore Kim's accomplishments.

Besides dictating that their audience doesn't want to see shooting sports in prime time, their overall coverage in this games has reached new lows. Every Olympics since NBC took it over, I keep wondering if the coverage can get any worse. It does. The downside of a broadcast monopoly.

For $10.00, you can get a VPN that will allow you to watch BBC on your computer, their coverage has been leagues better, I just don't enjoy watching sports on my laptop.

 

[Certaindeaf]

I gather that archery viewership/interest has grown hugely.. mainly due to that Hungry Gams movie. I view that as a good thing. Shooting is shooting.

 

[pmata814]

I tried watching some of the air ifle and air pistol events on my laptop and found it incredibly boring. So i can understand why they dont cover it.

You just sit there and stare at a guy holding a rifle. You can hear rifles going off and cant tell if he shot or not. Eventually an 'x' appears on the screen. Oh good shot i guess :-\

Sent from my SGH-T959V using Tapatalk 2

 

[Smokey Joe]

Coverage of shooting...

Pmata 814 called it: Part of the problem is that watching a shooting match is almost as exciting as watching paint dry. No cute little girls flying through the air--No ripped bodies splashing through the water--No straining runners vying against each other--No well-built young ladies in bikinis jumping at a net. Even the shotgun shooting isn't much--There was one quick view of that, and you couldn't even see the clay birds smash.

I agree that part of the problem is the self-appointed censors doing the broadcasting. But part of the problem is, how in heck do you make the shooting sports telegenic???

There's probably a way--Annie Oakley, back in the day, never lacked for media coverage, but I for one don't have a suggestion. The TV people broadcasting the Winter Olympics do OK covering biathlon.

 

[Certaindeaf]

^
Well, it'd be pretty easy.. show the backstory showing them shooting in their home territory.. how they used to use a stick and go "bang-bang!" when they were little grunions etc.. a little bit of character development and hardship and then cut to the winning/losing shot/s in the competition. It's all in the weaving/editing.
Given half a brain cell and will, paint drying can be made quite exciting I betcha. look at the kardashians

 

[ElToro]

Kim Rhode is just my speed... kinda chubby and likes to shoot AND she built a 427 kit Cobra herself!

 

[paw080]

Well, JS, You're right, I'm almost 71, and I'm getting back into ISSF international

shooting. I've been training for 10 meter air pistol and 50 meter pistol;

commonly known as Free Pistol. The pistol events are probably easier to compete in,

because all the shooter really needs is sight correction to clearly see the front sight.

The target bull is just a dark grey blob during the sighting/aligning process. I may even

give the Rapid Fire event a try for grins. I feel that I'm the only factor in competitive

performance; I had Cataract surgery and that really helped my sighting. ability

Tony

 

[Peter M. Eick]

I watched almost all of the shooting events on-line.

To me the 10 m Air rifle was fascinating. I competed ISU back about 30 years ago now and it was really interesting to see how the sport has changed. Just the stance the shooters took, the hardware they were using, the approach was amazing to see it on video where I could go back and repeat it over and over again.

My old Beeman 400 Springer looks like really dated hardware today. It was sure fun to compete back then though.

 

[pockets]

Using NBC's coverage schedule and a DVR, I managed to watch quite a bit of the rifle, air rifle, skeet, and archery competition. Did not see any pistol comps though.
At least in the men's skeet, they often had a camera behind the shooter so that you could see the shot and the clays bust (or not bust as it were).
I also agree that the rifle & air rifle comps are boring to watch on TV. Bundled up in shooting coats, welders gloves, festooned with shades/lenses/everything-but-sleighbells, hardly any sound but the announcer yammering/stammering, and not being able to view the actual target....boring. Somehow, seeing a 'representational target graphic' on the screen just doesn't thrill me.
I much prefer the winter games Biathlon type shooting where you can see the targets get 'hit or missed' live and in color.
Now the archery competitions.....those turned out to be very cool to watch. Honestly, it was far more interesting to watch Olympic archery than the rifle shoots. Between the movies 'The Hunger Games', 'Brave', 'Thor', and 'The Avengers'...archery has gotten a bit of a big screen boost this year.

If I am being totally honest, 'Dressage' was far more interesting to watch than summer Olympic rifle shooting competitions.
They sure can shoot though!!!!

.

 

[wojownik]

While Kim Rhodes deservedly is getting some attention (not enough IMHO), also worth a very big note is Jamie Gray, who took the gold for the US in the Women's 3 position 50m Rifle, and set an Olympic record at 10.8 pts!

And of the men, Matt Emmons took the Bronze in Men's 3 position 50m rifle, and Hancock took Gold in Men's skeet.

Personally, I'd be hugely honored to take the Bronze in any shooting sport. Or even to qualify for the Olympics.

Go Team USA!

 

[TimboKhan]

Pockets, you and i think alike!!

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[Kynoch]

Oscar Swahn won a gold medal in shooting when he was 64 years old. Others have competed into their 70's.

The way Kim Rhode is shooting she may pass him. She is the only American to win an Olympic medal in 5 consecutive games (yeah she's been competing at that level for 20+ years), and will be training from Rio as soon as she finishes in London.

Kimberly claims that shoot 1,000 rounds/day. That's what, 40 boxes/day? Imagine the PALLETS of shells she goes through. Quite remarkable.

I wonder if she re-loads?

 

[Kynoch]

NBC = biased, self-important, greedy, politically correct idiots. It is a huge insult to ignore Kim's accomplishments.

Besides dictating that their audience doesn't want to see shooting sports in prime time, their overall coverage in this games has reached new lows. Every Olympics since NBC took it over, I keep wondering if the coverage can get any worse. It does. The downside of a broadcast monopoly.

For $10.00, you can get a VPN that will allow you to watch BBC on your computer, their coverage has been leagues better, I just don't enjoy watching sports on my laptop.

For zero dollars you can use one of the zillions of free proxies out there

 

[elryanoo]

Nbcolympics.com has full event replays you can watch if tv provider supports it.
I've watched a bunch of stuff they didn't cover on tv.