Olympian Kim Rhode, fresh off an historic performance in an ISSF World Cup competition, is making a bid to qualify in another Olympic shooting event.
The Monrovia resident, who will be making her fifth appearance in the Olympics this summer in London, is re-learning how to shoot international trap this week in Tucson.
“It’s been 15 to 20 years since I’ve been in a bunker field,” the 32-year-old said. “It’s only been eight days shooting this game and the difference is night and day.”
She needs to hit at least 58 out of 75 targets in a qualifying event next month to give the U.S. a second spot in the event. She said she’s already averaging that score in practice, including hitting her first 25 attempts for the first time Wednesday. She will not be taking away another U.S. competitor’s spot.
The hardest part for Rhode, who won her first Olympic medal in 1996 in Atlanta in double trap, an event that has been discontinued, is to shoot at the target twice. A target’s trajectory is unknown to the shooter and even may include skipping across the ground.
“It’s been a learning curve there because I have to remember to shoot the second shot,” she said. “I keep forgetting to pull the trigger.
“I’m still competing with myself. Hopefully I’ll make it.”
Earlier this week Rhode, the first official member of the 2012 U.S. Olympic team for her qualifying marks in skeet competition, set a World Cup record in Tucson.
She became the event’s first World Cup competitor to hit all 75 targets in the qualifying round. She missed only once in the 25-shot medal round to tie a World Cup record with a score of 99.
She previously hit 74 of 75 targets in World Cup competition twice.
“The targets looked bigger and looked slower,” she said of the near-perfect round. “A lot athletes say it’s being in the zone. That’s what we practice. We want to try and do that every day.
“I guess the shooting gods were with me that day.”
Her quest for a perfect score ended with 20 targets to go.
“One got away,” she said. “There are no excuses; it just happened. I guess I’m saving (the perfect score) for London. I just picked up and kept going.
“Man, I was so close.”
A preview of the London Games will be in two weeks with the World Cup’s second competition of the season. Rhode said the U.S. team will go to Denmark first to replicate what it will be doing for London this summer.
“I guess it’s going to be a measure,” she said. “There is no particular World Cup that stands out. But all of the athletes that are competing in London will be there as well.”
She will be attempting to become the first U.S. athlete to win five medals in an individual sport in five consecutive Games.
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