Matt Emmons, of Browns Mills, NJ wins the bronze medal in shooting in London
Published: Monday,
August 06, 2012 , 8:47 PM
Updated: Monday,
August 06, 2012 , 9:02 PM
We learned this after the Jersey guy
tore open his soul Monday for everyone to examine, before earning a bronze
medal in the 50-meter three-position rifle competition.
By now, you know his story — he’s
the guy who fumbled two golden chances for medals at Athens and Beijing, and
beat thyroid cancer — but you don’t watch sport shooting very often,
so it’s hard to know the collateral damage it creates. It’s not like you can
see it. This is not a game for men who traffic in Category 5 meltdowns —
twitchy, shirt-tugging, dozen-tics-per-minute guys of fan-friendly
vulnerability.
This sport is a quadrennial obscurity for most Americans.
Even a great triumph, such as the one the Emmons experienced at the Royal
Artillery Barracks, would merit a quick mention on NBC, and only as a
homeopathic dose of some producer’s inner soldier fantasy.
That’s how we felt before Monday. And now we’re here to tell
you we were dead wrong: This is the most mentally exhausting, nerve-wracking
experience you’ll ever see — at least the way Emmons does it — and it’s more
than an appreciation you get from his ability to hold a 14-pound gun for 90
minutes and blast a pinhole through a quarter-sized target 50 meters away time
after time after time.
This time, he nearly suffered a fate worse than ’04, when
his crossfire cost him a gold medal at Athens
Lamentable failures, but old news. Or so it seemed during
the three qualifying rounds of 40 shots each, as Emmons was solid during the
prone position round, superb during the standing position series, and a
straight shooter during the kneeling position set.
“He’s been pretty positive since 2008,” said his wife
Katrina, the Czech Olympian who has three medals herself. “It’s just really
tough when you have some — excuse my word — asses reminding you. Some of them
on purpose, some of them making fun, which was not nice.
“He’s had to overcome that, and it was hard. Because it made
him sad that people remember him more as (having) failed rather than a
success.”
So now he was one shot away from a silver medal again, in
the eight-man finals competition, which involve just 10 standing shots.
Just to clarify: Targets in the finals shrink. Now these
shots are akin to hitting a bullseye the size of a dime from more than a
half-football field away, and he had scored six 10’s in his seven previous
shots.
Pure. Confident. It is a skill that requires inhuman
concentration.
That’s when the Browns Mills product chose to remind us that the difference between calamity and serenity is about an inch, and largely influenced by a runaway heartbeat.
“I did everything I could to try to calm my body down,”
Emmons said. “On the last shot, I was just shaking so much, I thought, ‘Okay,
Matt — take your breaths, do your normal routine, and when you get on the
target, start putting pressure on the trigger, and just keep going. Don’t hold
up, don’t try to dress it up, just make it the best you can.’ ”
And with the memories of ’04 and ’08 swirling in the heads
of everyone in the building, Emmons squeezed the trigger — very prematurely, it
seemed — and the bullet pierced the target.
A gasp echoed throughout the hall as the board flashed a
“7.6,” indicating it was a few inches southeast of the bullseye.
“I was jumpy,” he said. “I made a mistake.”
It was the worst shot — by far — of the Finals round.
Somehow, Emmons lived to tell about it, because he finished
with 1271.3 points to 1271.0 for a Frenchman named Cyril Graff.
After 130 shots over five hours, Emmons earned his bronze by
a decimal point. If Graff scored a 10.8 on his last shot instead of his 10.4,
Emmons finishes fourth.
“Just to be on the podium is a special thing,” Jersey ’s
greatest marksman said. “The last four years have been tough. There’s been a
lot of buildup, and I had the weight of the world on my shoulders — about how I
was going to perform, how was I going to do on the last shot.”
He was gracious when that last shot brought bronze, just as
he was when it brought heartbreak. This, however, cannot be expressed as well
by scribbling strangers as it can by his peers, one of whom happened to set the
Olympic record in this event Monday.
He is Niccolo Campriani, the splendid shooter from Italy
“If I can comment here,” Campriani said in eloquent but
heavily accented English. “It’s not how you win, but how you handle the loss
that tells you whether you’re a champion or not.
“Matt is an unbelievable person. The way he managed Beijing
The room, filled with roughly 40 reporters from about two
dozen countries, broke out in applause, as Emmons reached over with his right
hand to affectionately rub his friend’s shoulder. Then he blinked back tears
again.
He is 31, and there could be more Olympics. Regardless of
what happens next, know this: Emmons never allowed failure to define him, and
he’s eager to share his new mantra: “It’s winning a bronze, not losing a
silver,” he said.
He might have pulled the trigger at the wrong moment, but it
was good enough. It’s not golden, but it’s something close to it.
Dave D’Alessandro:ddalessandro@starledger.com
Matt
Emmons‘ final shot of the Olympic 50-meter three-position rifle competition
was terrible. Again. Only this time, he was thrilled.
After seeing gold medals — or any medal, for that
matter — slip away with last-bullet debacles in Athens and Beijing, Emmons finally
made his way to the Olympic medal stand in the three-position event Monday.
A score of 7.6 on his final shot might be dreadful for
someone at the elite level, but good enough for Emmons to
win bronze at the Royal Artillery Barracks, the fourth and final medal for USA
Shooting at the London Games.
Emmons won
a 50-meter prone rifle gold at Athens Beijing
He was the leader with one shot left in three-position at Athens Beijing
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