Rifle: Hammond Earns Olympic Qualifying Score
July 19, 2007 02:54 PM | General
July 19, 2007
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Jon Hammond |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University rifle coach Jon Hammond recently returned from a two-and-a-half week trip to Grenada, Spain, where he competed in the 2007 European Championships.
The trip was very fruitful for Hammond, who secured a rifle quota place for Great Britain in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games with a score of 700.0 and a subsequent fourth place finish in the men’s 50-meter prone rifle.
Hammond shot 596 last Thursday to advance past the elimination round and then set a personal best score of 597 on Friday to get into a four-way tie for second place, just one point behind Italy’s Marco De Nicolo heading into the 10-shot final which was also held on Friday.
De Nicolo hung onto his lead to take first in the event while Russia’s Artem Khadjibekov and Norway’s Espen Berg-Knutsen took the silver and bronze respectively to deny Hammond a medal.
There were three quota places up for grabs at the European Championships but De Nicolo and Khadjibekov had previously won quota places and competitors can only win one. That allowed Berg-Knutson in third to win a quota for Norway while Hammond secured a quota for Great Britain by finishing fourth. Fifth and sixth place finishers in the event had also previously secured quotas allowing a seventh place finisher from the Czech Republic to earn the event’s final quota.
Hammond earned the first quota for Great Britain in rifle in this Olympic cycle. They have also already earned three quotas in shotgun. Technically, the quota place is won for the country and the country can then send whomever they choose to the Olympics but historically Great Britain has sent its quota place winner. Final selection for the Beijing Olympics won’t be announced until next summer, but Hammond fully expects to be sent to the Far East.
“Obviously I am delighted to have won the quota place, and the prospect of going to the Olympics next year is incredible, and has pretty much been one of my life goals for a long time,” Hammond said.
“Final selection will be next summer but having won the place I’m optimistic I’ll be selected, although you can never count on anything in sport.”
