After Stage I of the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in air pistol shooting, Olympian Nick Mowrer (Butte, Mont.) emerged with a 17-point lead in the men’s competition on Monday, while national champion Alexis Lagan (Boulder City, Nev.) has a slim lead in the women’s field.
Mowrer, a 2012 Olympic Team member for free pistol, 2019 air pistol national champion and 2020 quota winner, posted a two-day total of 1163 at the Colorado Springs Olympic & Paralympic Training Center to take the lead into the second stage of the Olympic Trials, which will be held in Ft. Benning, Ga., Feb. 24-March 2.
Seventeen-year-old junior competitor Hunter Battig (Colorado Springs, Colo.) was in second place with a score of 1146 to hold down the second quota spot. Four points back of Battig in third place was another junior competitor, 19-year-old Jack Leverett III (Bainbridge, Ga.) with a total of 1142. Anthony McCollum (Purdin, Mo.) and Olympian Jay Shi (Phoenix, Ariz.) are tied for fourth place with 1140 points apiece, closely followed by 2018 CAT Games air pistol gold medalist and 2020 quota winner James Hall (Columbia, Mo.) who totaled 1139 over the two days of competition. Scores from the first stage carry over to the second stage in February.
Leverett won the junior men’s final over open final winner Battig, while 15-year-old Paul Kang (Los Angeles, Calif.) was third.
Lagan lost Monday’s women’s final to Sandra Uptagrafft (Phenix City, Ala.) but her total of 1144 still gives her a two-point advantage over Uptagrafft. It also means that Lagan and Uptagrafft are currently 1-2 in both the Olympic Trials for sport pistol and the Olympic Trials for air pistol.
Miglena Todorova (Miranda, Calif.) entered
