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American Emmons misses out on gold by firing at wrong target
By DAVID MORDKOFF, AP Sports Writer
August 22, 2004
ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Matt Emmons was just focusing on staying calm. He wishes he had been more concerned with where he was shooting.
Emmons fired at the wrong target on his final shot Sunday, a simple mistake that cost the American a commanding lead in the Olympic 50-meter three-position rifle final and ruined his chance for a second gold medal.
Ahead after nine shots and needing only to get near the bull's-eye to win, Emmons fired at the target in lane three while he was shooting in lane two. When no score appeared on the electronic scoring device for his lane, he turned to officials and gestured there was some sort of error.
``I shot,'' he appeared to say with a quizzical look as three officials in red blazers approached.
The officials went back and huddled briefly before announcing that Emmons had cross-fired -- an extremely rare mistake in elite competition -- and awarded him a score of zero. That dropped Emmons to eighth place at 1,257.4 points and lifted Jia Zhanbo of China to the gold at 1,264.5.
Emmons, a 23-year-old accounting student from Browns Mills, N.J., explained he usually looks at the number of the target through his viewfinder as a reference point and then lowers his gun to hone in on the target.
``On that shot, I was just worrying about calming myself down and just breaking a good shot, and so I didn't even look at the number,'' he said. ``I probably should have. I will from now on.''
If Emmons had fired at the right target, he would have needed only a 7 to win. When judges checked the wrong target, they determined Emmons had scored an all-for-naught 8.1.
``Honestly, when I shot the shot, everything felt fine,'' a stunned Emmons told reporters. ``I looked down at the monitor and I didn't see a shot. On those targets, sometimes every once in a great while, it won't register. The shot just doesn't show up, so that's what I thought happened.''
``For like a half-a-second, I thought, 'Maybe I cross-fired ... no, no, I didn't do that.'''
The mistake lifted Michael Anti, of Winterville, N.C., to the silver at 1,263.1 points and Christian Planer of Austria to the bronze at 1,262.8.
And at the time it happened, it allowed China to tie the United States for the most overall gold medals in the Athens Games at 20.
Emmons' errant shot also overshadowed what had been a successful Olympics that made him one of the feel-good stories of these games.
After discovering earlier this year that someone had apparently sabotaged his rifle, Emmons used a gun loaned to him by a training partner and won the gold medal Friday in the 50-meter prone rifle competition.
http://sports.yahoo.com/oly/shooting/news?slug=ap-mensrifle3positionsho&prov=ap&type=lgns