Airgun Athletes to Compete in Austria and Germany
Fort Benning, GA -(AmmoLand.com)- Thirteen USA Shooting airgun athletes are on their way to Innsbruck, Austria to compete in the Meyton Cup January 22 – 26. The Meyton Cup will welcome 240 shooters from 18 countries for competition in the Air Rifle and Pistol disciplines.
Following the competition in Innsbruck, those athletes plus Matt Emmons (Browns Mills, New Jersey) will head to Munich, Germany to compete in the International Competition Munich (IWK) January 28-30. This match is perhaps better known as the Bavarian Airgun Championships because it serves as the Airgun Championships for the German state of Bavaria. It is historically one of the most strongly-contested events outside of the European World Cups and often features world-record level performances virtually every year.
USA Shooting athletes for this match were selected by National Team coaches, with results from the Winter Airgun Championships in December weighing heavily on team selection. Director of Operations and National Rifle Coach Dave Johnson also noted that these matches are also a great opportunity to train up-and-coming talent. Several athletes who were selected to compete declined their appointments to train for the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Smallbore, which will take place April 1 – 8 in Fort Benning, Georgia.
Leading the pistol contingent will be Air Pistol National Champion Will Brown (Twin Falls, Idaho, pictured) who was also the top finisher at Winter Airgun, putting up two world-class Qualification scores over the three-day match. Also showing consistent strong performances throughout the Winter Airgun match was second-place finisher James Henderson (U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit/Midland, Georgia) who will also be competing.
The top-three finishers on the Women’s side in Winter Airgun will also compete in Austria and Germany: Courtney Anthony (Lexington, Nebraska), Alexis Lagan (Salt Lake City, Utah) and Lydia Paterson (Kansas City, Kansas). Paterson made her first international Open Final appearance when she finished in eighth place at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup in Munich last year, earning the lone Women’s Air Pistol Olympic quota.
Youth will lead the rifle competitors as 20-year-old Ivan Roe (Manhattan, Montana) and 17-year-old Rhiann Travis (Poolville, Texas) make their Bavarian Airgun Championships debut. These Junior athletes both finished in third-place overall at Winter Airgun.
They’ll also be joined by Air Rifle National Champion Dempster Christenson (Sioux Falls, South Dakota) and National Championship silver medalist Ryan Anderson (Wasilla, Alaska).
Rounding out the roster will be rifle athletes Will Shaner (Colorado Springs, Colorado) and Elizabeth Marsh (Searcy, Arkansas), as well as pistol athletes Alex Chichkov (Temple Terrace, Florida) and 2012 Olympian Nick Mowrer (Butte, Montana).
Follow results from the Meyton Cup here: https://www.tlsb.at/index.php?
Follow live results from the Bavarian Airgun Championships here: https://results.sius.com/
About ELEY:
ELEY is a Proud Sponsor of the USA Shooting Rifle and Pistol Teams: ELEY Limited, manufacturer of the world’s most consistently accurate rimfire ammunition, has been the Official Sponsor and Official Supplier of .22 rimfire ammunition of the USA Shooting rifle and pistol teams since 2000.
For more information on ELEY and their products, please visit www.eley.co.uk.
About USA Shooting:
USA Shooting, a 501c3 non-profit corporation, was chartered by the United States Olympic Committee as the National Governing Body for the sport of shooting in April 1995. USA Shooting’s mission is to prepare American athletes to win Olympic medals, promote the shooting sports throughout the U.S. and govern the conduct of international shooting in the country.
Check us out on the web at usashooting.org and on Twitter at twitter.com/USAShooting.