COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (August 25, 2018)
Seems everything is just bigger in the non-Olympic events contested at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship: The distances are bigger, the calibers are bigger – even the bangs are bigger. In a sport that’s so focused on pinpoint precision, those athletes who shoot the game on a bigger scale will get their chance to shine as they do every four years at the 52nd ISSF World Championship August 31 – September 15 in Changwon, South Korea.
U.S. athletes have not been strangers to success in the 300m Rifle events, which were once included in the Olympic Games. “300m was once known as the King of the Shooting Events,” said five-time Olympian Lones Wigger. He won the last Olympic gold medal to be awarded in 300m Three-Position Rifle at the 1972 Olympic Games. In the two Olympic Games prior, fellow American Gary Anderson won gold in 300m Three-Position Rifle as well.
And while these events, along with a variety of 25m Pistol events, Women’s Prone Rifle and the recently-nixed Olympic events of Men’s 50m Prone Rifle and Men’s 50m Free Pistol and Double Trap. In all, 24 events (seven Rifle, six Pistol, one Shotgun and 10 Running Target) and 72 medals in the non-Olympic events will be awarded in Changwon. Learn more about the Olympic and non-Olympic events that will be contested at the ISSF World Championship: https://www.issf-sports.org/theissf/championships/world_championships.ashx. [1]
At the 51st ISSF World Championship in Granada, Spain in 2014, U.S. athletes won six medals in the non-Olympic events that year. Only two athletes who won individual medals in non-Olympic events in 2014 return to this year’s team: Michael McPhail (Darlington, Wisconsin/U.S. Army
