Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Elizabeth Callahan, in training for the 2004 Olympic Games at Athens, Greece. (Photo by Tim Hipps)
Elizabeth Callahan qualified for her fourth U.S. Olympic team Thursday at age 56, finishing second in the sport pistol competition at the U.S. shooting trials to earn a trip to Beijing.
The oldest known American woman to have competed in the Summer Olympics is Kyra Downton at age 55, according to USA Shooting and the U.S. Olympic Committee. Downton was in the equestrian competition in 1968.
Rebecca 'Beki' Snyder also earned a spot by winning the sport pistol event. Three others also qualified for Beijing at the trials Thursday: Mike Anti in prone rifle, and Jason Turner and Daryl Szarenski in free pistol.
Callahan competed in the 1992, 1996 and 2004 Olympics. Snyder also is heading to the Olympics for the fourth time.
Anti qualified for his fourth trip to the Olympics, winning the prone rifle event. American Matt Emmons, the 2004 Olympic champion in prone rifle, had already secured spots for Beijing in prone and three-position rifle.
Anti won silver in 2004 in the three-position event.
"I am very excited about making the team, but we have so many good prone shooters in the U.S., so it is kind of a bittersweet victory for me,'' Anti said.
Spc. Walton Glenn Eller III of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit at Fort Benning, Ga., bites his Olympic gold medal after winning the double trap event Aug. 12 at the Beijing Shooting Range. (Tim Hipps) Eller set two Olympic records en route to winning a Gold Medal in double trap at the Beijing Shooting Range Tuesday.
Eller's score of 145 in the qualification rounds eclipsed the previous Olympic record of 144 set in the 2004 Athens Games by United Arab Emirates' shooter Ahmed Almaktoum, who finished seventh in Beijing, according to the Army News Service.
In double trap, competitors fire their 12-gauge shotguns from five adjacent shooting stations. At each station, two targets are thrown simultaneously from an underground bunker at speeds up to 50 miles per hour at set angles and height. The targets are thrown with a variable delay of up to one second and competitors get one shot per target.
"I realized with my last pair to go, 'Oh, the Olympic record is only 144. If I hit my last pair, I'm going to get the Olympic record,'" Eller said.
When Eller did that, he sensed that he was on his way to a spectacular day. He missed his first two targets in the final, but settled down and missed only three shots the rest of the way.
"If you shoot the Olympic record (in qualification rounds) and you've got a little bit of a lead, you expect to come out with Gold," Eller said. "But after I went out there (in the final) and missed that first pair, it was a little dicey there for a second, but I brought it all back together."
Eller's final score of 190 topped Almaktoum's world record of 189, also set in Athens. Italy's Francdesco D'Aniello won the silver medal in Beijing with a score of 187, and China's Binyuan Hu took the bronze with a 184 total.
"It's incredible," said the 26-year-old Katy, Texas native."I finally made a final in the Olympics. I came in like 12th (in Sydney) and 17th (in Athens), and finally came out and put a good day together. This was the only thing I was worried about for the last two years."
Explaining his key to success, Eller reached into his vest and revealed a handful of baseball cards.
"Hard work," the three-time Olympian said as he shuffled cards featuring Soldiers of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit. "That, and I had my teammates with me. The military has been great to me. They've helped me fulfill a dream that, without them, I don't think would've ever happened. I owe everything to them."
Eller said he could not wait to give his parents a big bear hug:
"I'm going to go find my parents and celebrate," he said. "They've been here all week and to the last two Olympics watching me. To have them here and to finally win a Gold Medal for them is incredible. The crowd was amazing. The facilities were incredible."
Click here for more GPB News coverage of events at Fort Benning, and here for more on the Beijing Olympic Games.
A Georgia Congressman says he will boycott part of the Beijing Olympics. U.S Representative John Lewis tells the Atlanta Journal Constitution the U.S. should not attend the opening ceremonies. Thousands of protestors have disrupted the world tour of the Olympic Torch in Paris, London and San Francisco. They accuse China of human rights abuses and of oppressing the country, culture and religion of Tibet.
A 19-year old from Eatonton became the youngest shooter to win gold in the Beijing Olympics. Vincent Hancock is a member of the Army’s Marksmanship Unit based in Fort Benning. He is the second American to win first place an Olympic shotgun event. Hancock is no stranger to competition. At age 16 he won the world skeet shooting championship.
