World Shooting Championships, Lathi, Finland
America's Matt Emmons Wins Gold in Men's Prone Rifle,
Begins a Rain of Medals for the USA at the 2002

Provided by Scott Engen
USA Shooting

LATHI, FINLAND- America's Matt Emmons celebrated Independence Day by staging a come-from-behind victory in the men's 50-meter prone rifle event at the 2002 ISSF World Shooting Championship in Lathi, Finland. The subject of a feature interview in 'USA Today' on July 2, Emmons candidly expressed a deep-seated dread of choking in the finals of a major international competition. Confronting those fears head-on and rising to the occasion, the 21-year-old senior at the University of Alaska Fairbanks trailed Norway's Espen Berg-Knutsen by two points entering the ten-shot medals round final after shooting 596 of a possible 600 points in the qualification round. A stellar 103.7 final round score from the Browns Mills, New Jersey, native overtook the veteran Norseman to give Emmons his first world champion title. Rajmond Debevec of Slovenia took the silver with a combined score of 698.8, followed by Berg-Knutsen in third place with a 698.3. In other American finishes, U. S. Naval Reservist Eric Uptagrafft, 36, a 1996 US Olympian from Longmont, Colorado was 10th with a 593, and U. S. Army Marksmanship Unit shooter Tom Tamas, 36, a 2000 US Olympian from Columbus, Georgia, was 45th with a 586. Tamas was the defending World Champion in this event. The USA finished 4th in the team competition.

Emmons' UAF teammate, Joe Hein, 20, of Mason, Michigan, took home the gold medal in the men's junior prone rifle competition with a score of 589. Other American finishes in this event included one from a Kentucky Wildcat, Bradley Wheeldon, 20, of Eubank, Kentucky, finished 19th with a score of 581, and one by Matt Rawlings, 17, of Wharton, Texas, who was 38th with a score of 575. The USA junior men’s prone team took the bronze medal, behind teams from Germany and Russia.

The World Shooting Championship is held every four years. The championship is sanctioned by the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) and in shooting is second only to the Olympic Games in prestige. With a much larger field of competitors in each event, many top shooter consider it more difficult to win a World Championship than to win an Olympic gold medal. Along with world championship titles, top finishers at the Finland matches will secure coveted Olympic quota lots for their nations, guaranteeing their country a starting position in that shooting event at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.