Down to the Last Shot  Last month, The First Shot ran an article on the October Shooting Championship of the Americas (CAT Games). As is often true of news reporting, however, the writing often fails to capture the real drama of certain moments in competition, or perhaps put into perspective the significance of an event. Consider the backdrop of this international competition. Because of the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington D.C. two weeks prior, it was questionable whether the CAT Games would take place. As reported by USA Shooting, however, nearly 250 athletes from 13 nations did attend. Many of the visitors, in fact, wore red, white and blue ribbons on their uniforms or made other symbolic gestures of support for their U.S. counterparts. Even more compelling, a number of world records were equaled or broken during the Games, but because of limited participation, such stellar performances will likely not be recognized by ISSF.

For a moment in this contest of skill and wills, three American women took the spotlight. Again, as chronicled by USA Shooting: "Beki Snyder of Grand Junction, Colorado, and Sandra Uptagrafft of Longmont, Colorado, took the top two spots in women's air pistol. Snyder secured the gold with a qualifying round score of 381, then added a 96.6 in the medal or final round. Uptagrafft trailed Snyder by only a single point from the qualifying round and was steadily closing the gap until the last shot when Snyder was only two-tenths of a point ahead. Uptagrafft's final shot scored a tenuous 9.2, while Snyder buried her last shot deep into the 10 ring, scoring a 10.7 and snagging the gold medal." Synder scored impressively in other events as well. She would first take the top spot in the women's sport pistol, dropping only four points in the 30 shot precision stage, ending the match with a score of 584 out of 600 possible points. She would be tested in this event by Janine Bowman of Dallas, Texas, who trailed Synder by nine points going into the final. Bowman staged a strong rally with a tremendous 102.0 final series. She could not, however, make up the margin, and Snyder held on for another gold.  Synder and Bowman later teamed up to take the gold medal in the women's sport pistol team event. The American women would post a total of 1157 points to beat the second place El Salvador team by more than 60 points.

Flags flying at the 2001 CAT Games at Ft. Benning, Georgia A picture of concentration. Beki Synder during the Women's air pistol event.