Olympic Team To Be Finalized At U.S. Smallbore Rifle Trials

The four remaining spots (two men and two women) on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Team are up for grabs at the USA Shooting Smallbore Rifle Trials Part 2, May 20–26 at Ft. Benning, Ga.

Scores from Trials Part 1, plus finals points awarded based on finishing positions in the final, are added to scores from this week’s event, along with finals points that are awarded based on the Trials Part 2 final results to determine the Olympic Team and Olympic Alternates. The first portion of the Smallbore Rifle Trials were held in September and October of 2019. U.S. shooters earned the maximum of two Olympic quotas in both men’s and women’s 50-meter smallbore rifle events.

Rio 2016 Olympic gold-medal winner Ginny Thrasher (Springfield, Va.) is looking to pick up where she left off in Part 1, as she currently sits at the top of the leaderboard with a score of 2345. Only 10 points separate second through seventh place in women’s smallbore: Rachel McCollum (Celina, Texas) 2342, Mary Tucker (Sarasota, Fla.) 2338, Sagen Maddalena (Groveland, Calif.) 2337, Rachel Martin (Lincoln, Neb.) 2335, Sarah Beard (Danville, Ind.) 2334 and Anna Weilbacher (Leona Valley, Calif.) with 2332.

Mary Tucker, fresh off an individual NCAA championship in smallbore rifle and a Junior Olympic gold medal, looks to add smallbore Olympian to her resume in addition to her spot on the Olympic Air Rifle Team. Maddalena and Beard, who won alternate Olympic spots in air rifle, will fight to punch their ticket to Tokyo in smallbore rifle.

On the men’s side, Timothy Sherry (Evergreen, Colo.) leads by 5 points after the first part of the trials over second-place Patrick Sunderman (Farmington, Minn.) with a score of 2344. Only five points separate Sunderman from third place Peter Fiori (Lebanon, N.J.), and another five points separate Fiori from Nick Mowrer (Butte, Mont.) in fourth place with a score of 2399. Mowrer—who is already heading to Tokyo this summer to compete in men’s air pistol—looks to make history as the first U.S. athlete to make the Olympic team in both pistol and rifle disciplines.

After the conclusion of training sessions, the match proper begins on Tuesday, May 25 and will conclude on Wednesday, May 26 with the finals. Learn more at usashooting.org.