Army Sgt. 1st Class Shawn Dulohery lost a three- way shoot-off for a bronze medal and finished fifth in men's skeet shooting Aug. 22 in the 2004 Summer Olympic Games here.
Sgt. 1st Class James "Todd" Graves finished in a six-way tie for ninth place in the two-day event at Markopoulo Olympic Shooting Centre.
Italy's Andrea Benelli prevailed in another shoot-off against silver medalist Marko Kemppainen, who equaled the world record in qualification, to win the gold medal with a final score of 149. Cuba's Juan Miguel Rodriguez defeated Qatar's Nasser Al-Attiya and Dulohery in the shoot-off for the bronze medal with a 147 total.
"It was an exciting final, good to be in it," said Dulohery, 39, from Lee's Summit, Mo., and a member of the Army Marksmanship Unit based at Fort Benning, Ga. "I wish for USA Shooting's sake and my sake that I would've won a medal, but there's always the next one."
Dulohery nailed 122 of 125 targets in five qualification rounds, including a perfect 25 in his final stanza to reach the final. He said he was too pumped up for the shoot-off.
"I just shot it too quick," he said of missing his sixth target in the shoot- off for third place. "I get quicker as the pressure builds. I'm a really, really high-anxiety person, and I was pretty excited just to be in the finals." Rodriguez downed 10 targets to Nasser's nine to claim the bronze.
Graves, 41, a marksmanship unit shotgun shooter from Laurel, Miss., finished qualification with a score of 121, one target shy of the cutoff for the final.
"I knew I had to run 50 today," said Graves, who shot 24 of 25 targets in back- to-back rounds. "When I missed one in the first round and I saw how the wind was blowing, I knew if I could run the last run that I would have a chance, but one just slipped away from me."
(Tim Hipps is assigned to the Army Community and Family Support Center Public Affairs Office.)
Story by Tim Hipps, Special to American Forces Press Service