Post date: Aug 15, 2016 3:11:14 PM
By Tim O’Donnell, todonnell@newsminer.com
FAIRBANKS — Matt Emmons struggled during the standing portion of the men’s 50-meter three-position rifle match on Sunday and it cost him a shot at his fourth Olympic medal.
The former Alaska Nanooks shooter fired a 378 during the 40-shot standing portion and finished 19th in the 44-person field with a total score of 1,169.
Emmons was part of a three-way tie for fifth at 791 before the standing portion. Emmons shot a 391 in kneeling and had a perfect 400 in prone.
“Standing was really confusing,” Emmons wrote on his Facebook page. “It felt great, looked great, and I thought I was shooting really good shots. So many of my shots didn’t make sense. I didn’t have very many bad shots, just a lot of very close 9’s.
“It was one of those situations where I didn’t know what I could have done different or better,” Emmons added.
The top eight finishers from qualifying advanced to the finals. Italy’s Niccolo Campriani, who was eighth in qualifying, won gold after shooting a 458.8 in the finals.
Sergey Kamenskiy, of Russia, took silver with a 458.5 in the finals and France’s Alexis Raynaud won bronze with a 448.4 in the finals.
Emmons won the gold medal in the 50 meter prone match at the 2008 Olympics in Athens, Greece, and added a silver medal in the same match at the 2008 Beijing games.
At the 2012 games in London, Emmons took bronze in the three position match.
Emmons won the NCAA individual smallbore championship in 2001-03 and the air rifle individual title in 2001 while shooting with the Nanooks.