By Sgt. 1st Class Raymond J. Piper
USAMU PAO
TUSCON, Ariz. – It was an all-American shootout for the gold
and silver medals for Men’s Double Trap during the 2014 International Shooting
Sports Federation (ISSF) Shotgun World Cup April 13 at the Tucson Trap and
Skeet Club.
After both U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) Soldiers hit
27 out of 30 targets, Staff Sgt. Jeff Holguin captured his first World Cup gold
by beating teammate Staff Sgt. Josh Richmond in a shoot out for first place.
“I think we did well in the semi-finals because the wind was
really getting to some of those guys,” Holguin said, adding that previous
competitions in Texas and Tucson had
prepared the USAMU shooters for windy conditions.
The two team mates compared notes before the finals started
because they had noticed small inconsistencies with the target’s presentation
during the qualification rounds.
“We bounced a couple ideas off each other and … it really
helped,” Holguin said. “When we’re at the top of our games, we’re tough to
beat.”
The shoot-off ended for the USAMU members with Holguin
coming out ahead with four hits to Richmond’s three.
Richmond said he was surprised when the dust settled, and it
was him and Holguin in the top two spots.
“It felt great when I looked over at the score board and I
could see it was me and Jeff in the shoot off for the gold and silver,” he
said.
Holguin, a native of Fullerton, Calif., described his first World Cup gold medal as
“awesome” because there was a pretty good field of shooters out there. To get
to the semi-finals, he finished fourth in the qualification with a score of
140.
Richmond, from Hillsgrove, Pa., said there were some tough targets on the
fifth bunker, where he shot his lowest round with a 25, but rallied back to tie
for number six, leading to a shoot-off against Great Britain’s Steven Scott.
Shooting against a
fellow Soldier, Holguin said, took off some of the pressure.
“If it was someone else, maybe I would have been more
nervous, because I wasn’t at all. It just felt like me and him were shooting
back at (Fort Benning),” he said.
One of the things that he said took off the pressure off was
that they both qualified for the gold medal finals and no matter what they both
were going home with medals around their necks.
“The way the new rules are set up if you can get in the gold
medal match, you are guaranteed a medal, and if you’re shooting against your
team mate that’s awesome (because you know you’re both walking away with
hardware),” Holguin said.
The shooters have a full schedule of World Cups and their
goal is to have a medalist on the stage at every one of them, preferably gold,
Richmond said.
“That will never change no matter what level of
competition,” he added.
As they try to win gold throughout the rest of the season,
they are beginning to focus on the road to the 2016 Olympics.
“We have our eyes on the World Championship in Spain. It’s
the first time you can earn a quota spot for the Olympics,” Richmond said. “We’re
going to be training hard, gearing up toward that.”
USAMU is part of the U.S. Army Accessions Brigade, Army
Marketing and Research Group and is tasked with enhancing the Army’s recruiting
effort, raising the standard of Army marksmanship and furthering small arms
research and development to enhance the Army’s overall combat readiness
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