Marksmen See Olympic Success
By PAUL GRISCTI
Tribune Sports Writer
Two of the country's top pistol marksmen said the United States should place well in the small and large bore rifle competition at the Munich Olympics this summer.
Lt. Col. William McMillan, who has been on the past five Olympic teams and won the rapid-fire Gold Medal in the 1960 games in Rome, and SFC James McNally, a member of the 1968 team, made their comments while competing in the national Mid-Winter Pistol championships held this weekend at the Tampa Police Range.
McMILLAN, team captain of the Marine Corps shooting team, has been firing competitively since 1952. He said the U.S. team should place well in the rifle categories "where there are many top-grade shooters in the country.
"But there just aren't that many pistol shooters because of expense and time involved in practicing," McMillan said. McNally, shooting for the U.S. Army team and a bronze medalist in the 1962 world championships, agreed.
"It takes a lot of practice to develop the rapid fire technique," McNally added. Rapid fire involves shooting at five silhouette targets in two five round strings. The strings are timed, first eight seconds, then six and finally four.
"TIME FOR aiming is practically nil, expecially in the four-second string," McNally said. "We've got it figured at two seconds (in a four second string) to fire that first round, then three-tenths of second to turn and fire at each of the other four.
"And the mental pressure is tremendous - in fact, I believe it is the most exacting of all sports. One day you can be great, then something rattles you and you fall apart," McMillan added.
Both said the U.S. can expect very strong competition from Finland, Russia, Romania, Poland and Italy.
"They've always been strong and we've always been pushed quite heavily from them in the pistol events," McMillan said.
McMillan and McNally both finished fairly well in yesterday's events which are part of the rounds leading up to the Olympic qualifying tournament in Phoenix in June. Both qualified for the Phoenix meet last month at Goodland.