Hammond Weathers Wind at Beijing Olympics

I found a brief writeup on how the coach of the University of West Virginia rife team is doing at the Olympics. Jon Hammond was also the 2008 NRA Distinguished College Coach of the year. Here's a sample of the story...

West Virginia University Rifle Coach Jon Hammond finished 34th in the 50m rifle prone qualifier with 589 points at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Hammond opened competition at 9 a.m. Beijing-time.

Hammond, competing for Great Britain, battled poor wind conditions throughout the match. He followed his first string of 99 with a break, only to return 25 minutes later to even stronger wind gusts. After second-and third-round scores of 97 and 96, respectively, Hammond rebounded and closed out the match with strings of 98, 99 and 100.

Despite a few rough middle strings, Hammond was both satisfied and optimistic about his performance and thankful for his experiences thus far.

“Unfortunately, today didn’t go as I had hoped, but I cannot be too disappointed,” Hammond said. “Conditions were extremely difficult, and ultimately I didn’t shoot well enough in the wind. To be honest, I don’t feel that I fired any bad shots; I just had trouble negotiating the conditions."