CAMP PERRY, OHIO - So, what has the U.S. Olympic Team rifle coach been doing since two of his competitors in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing brought home silver and bronze medals in our nation's finest collective Olympic shooting performance at least since 1964?

Major David Johnson, USAR, who is on active duty in the Defense Department’s World Class Athlete Program as the National Rifle Coach, is already preparing for the next four-year Olympic cycle that will culminate with the London Games in 2012. The budgeting process, a primary consideration for training, is well underway at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

A featured speaker at the National Youth Leadership Conference at Camp Perry in September, MAJ Johnson delivered messages on two topics at the conference - Six Shooting Medals in Beijing - How We Won Them & What We Learned and The Path - How a Coach Mentors a Motivated Young Shooter from Their Beginning to the Olympic Games.

Team USA's mentor is a veteran member of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit and active duty member of the Army's World Class Athlete Program. Originally from New Jersey, MAJ Johnson began his shooting career in 1972 at the Langley Junior Rifle Club in Virginia when he was still an elementary school student.

While in high school in 1981, he captured one silver and five gold medals at the Championship of the Americas and two years later became the NCAA Individual Champion while attending West Virginia University.

He graduated from WVU in 1986 and afterward joined the Army Reserve and became a member of the Army's Marksmanship Unit. In 1992 he earned a position on the U.S. Olympic rifle team.

In 2000 MAJ Johnson was appointed rifle coach at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and coached the team to three individual and two NCAA titles. He coached the USA rifle team at the 2004 Olympic Games where his shooters earned two medals and he led the 2006 World Championship and 2007 Pan American Games teams.

At Beijing in 2008, the U.S. brought home six medals overall in shooting sports including two gold, two silver and two bronze - a new record of success in events traditionally dominated by European and Asian nations. In addition to four medals by U.S. shooters in trap and skeet, Matt Emmons of Browns Mills, N.J., took home the silver in Men's 50-Meter Prone Rifle and Jason Turner of Rochester, N.Y., was awarded a bronze medal in Men's 10-Meter Air Pistol.

Emmons was in the lead for the gold medal going into the final shot of the 50-Meter 3-Position Rifle final when a premature trigger break caused his final shot to land high in the four ring as he settled down from the 12 o'clock position. This resulted in a drop from a possible gold medal to fourth. In Women's 10-Meter Air Rifle, Jamie Beyerle of Lebanon, Pa., who fought back valiantly from hip surgery in December, claimed the fourth spot, barely out of medal contention.

In Six Shooting Medals in Beijing, MAJ Johnson discussed the rifle team's administrative plan to prepare for the Olympic games, beginning with budgeting, offering incentives for medals won, implementing team-building techniques, organizing training camps and developing successful goal-setting strategies. He concluded his comments with a recap of Beyerle's and Emmons' experiences in the Olympic finals.

"For all of our major events, we did a training camp somewhere in the world in preparation for the next big event," he said. "And I'm here to tell you it wasn't about trying to make somebody a better shooter five days before a big event ... it was all about overcoming jet lag and time management and getting shooters ready to compete."

“Crowd noise, something most shooters don't normally consider in a home range setting, was a real concern in Beijing,” MAJ Johnson said. “The Chinese are very vocal in support of their teams and the noise level makes concentrating on shooting that much more difficult.”

“Time management away from the firing line is another huge issue that competitors must master in order to stay on track in preparation for their events,” MAJ Johnson said. “The proper amount of physical training, dry firing, visualization, nutrition and normal activities must all be compressed into a narrow time slot,” he said. “It doesn't leave much time for sight-seeing and socialization,” he added.

While praising his entire team, MAJ Johnson discussed the ups and downs of Beyerle and Emmons over the past two Olympic cycles as an illustration of what it takes to mentally and physically prepare for events that require four years of preparation.

Beyerle, 24, was a strong favorite to make the 2004 Olympic team in three-position air rifle, but failed to score well enough during her tryout, he said. So Beyerle made some physical and practical adjustments to her approach, which included rebuilding her standing position.

"She took a lot of her time rebuilding her position. But more importantly, she did the work - it was not a one-week issue.” MAJ Johnson said she also worked on time and effort management so she wouldn't wear herself out during competitions.

Beyerle overcame a serious physical setback that may have knocked many competitors completely out of their training cycle. She suffered a torn labrum in her hip joint. The labrum is a lining of cartilage that supplies cushion and protection of the hip socket. Due to the misshapen ball on the end of her thighbone (femur), the labrum needed to be repaired surgically, he said. The injury was attributed to Beyerle's many years of soccer playing when she was younger.

The surgery was performed in December 2007 and because she was conditioned as an athlete, she was on an exercise bike four hours after the surgery.

"The doctor said 'If you want her ready in eight months (for the Beijing Games), this is what you're going to have to do.' She then began a schedule of four hours of rehab per day, MAJ Johnson said.

Two weeks after surgery she was allowed to pick up the gun again. MAJ Johnson said he challenged her with as much training as she could handle without tiring her - 17 shots the first day, 24 shots the next day and so on.

"I would take her off the line when she began to tire each day," he said. "I wanted her to end each session on a positive note to help build her confidence."

By the end of January, Beyerle was participating on a German Bundesliga club shooting team and six weeks after surgery she helped her German team advance in the competition, he said. At the end of May she won a silver medal in the 2008 ISSF World Cup in Milan.

In Beijing Beyerle reached the finals in air rifle, but finished fourth, just out of medal contention. She also competed in smallbore and after having some difficulty judging the wind, she fought back valiantly and finished a highly-respectable fifth place, Maj. Johnson said.

"There was a bit of drama and she got herself back into the final and did well. She has set herself up very nicely for the next cycle (four-year Olympic cycle)," he said.

Maj. Johnson also commented on the difficult finish that Matt Emmons had in the Olympic final in Men's 50-Meter 3 Position Rifle. It was the second Olympic final for Emmons and the second time he failed to make a key final shot to win potential gold medals in that event. In the 2004 Athens Games, Emmons cross-fired his final shot to fall out of medal contention. His errant final shot at Beijing, a 4.4 after a string of 10s, dropped him from gold to fourth place.

"We never shied away from that moment in Athens," MAJ Johnson said. "We said 'you're just going to have to live with this and do the best you can and get over it.'

"We spent a lot of time over the last four years putting Matt in pressure situations, distracting him as much as possible so he could learn to deal with distractions in big events," MAJ Johnson said.

Emmons and his coach knew going into the final that the atmosphere was going to be supercharged based on what happened four years earlier and that the home crowd was going to be very loud, especially because there was a Chinese competitor, Qiu Jian, in the final. Emmons fought through the pressure extremely well throughout the final and was three points ahead going into the final shot.

"We got over to the final and again here's a guy walking in with me who made a huge mistake four years prior and everybody, including the press knows it. My last words to him were 'hey, the noise is coming, the Chinese guy is in this match. He's going to be competitive; just ride the noise," MAJ Johnson said.

"The noise was focused down there, palpable - you could feel it. Our plan was to hold and ride the noise," he said.

In reviewing what happened, MAJ Johnson said it appeared Emmons rushed his final shot and got caught up in the excitement of the moment. Emmons had been averaging approximately 35 to 40 seconds to break his final round; his final shot broke in under 20 seconds.

"It was simply in the timing and the shot went off before Matt expected it - it just happened."

MAJ Johnson praised Emmons for his stoicism and handling his setback in a sportsmanlike manner. He said he agreed completely with a remark that Emmons made to him later - "I feel like I've earned a gold medal - I just haven't won it."

The Team USA mentor later reflected upon his participation in the conference and proclaimed "there can be no championships without beginnings." And those beginnings come from local shooting clubs where local coaches identify and nurture some of our best shooters.

"Our Olympic shooters all come from somewhere," Maj. Johnson said. "We're dedicated to teaching people to shoot and to giving them a high quality start," he said. "These conferences build awareness and skill development."

When asked if the light media coverage shooting sports receives troubles him, he said it can be annoying, but allowed that "we're just one of 28 sports in the Olympics so it's not too surprising that we don't receive much coverage." MAJ Johnson said Team USA receives media training from the USOC with the goal of promoting the sport, but it's still not enough.

Human interest stories such as those about Matt Emmons' travails do get some coverage. But all is not gloomy in the news coverage of Emmons - his wife of one year, Katerina (formerly Kurkova), is a U.S. resident despite being an Olympian for the Czech Republic. She received the first gold medal of the 2008 Beijing Olympics for winning the Women's 10-Meter Air Rifle event where she set a new Olympic record of 503.5.

"The news media is a tool that we use to promote positive stories in order to help the sport to grow," MAJ Johnson said.

"Right now we're focused on improvement. We met our expectation of winning six medals in the Beijing Games," he said. The next goal will be to surpass that number at the London Games in 2012. "We're hoping London does a good job with their new shooting venue. It's a lot like most Western democracies, so there is a certain comfort in that," he said.

The first big event in the Olympic cycle will be the ISSF World Cup in Munich in 2009, MAJ Johnson said. He has high expectations that the U. S. team will make a strong showing. Other milestones along the way to the London Games will include the 2010 Championships of the Americas, 2010 World Championships in Munich and the 2011 Pan-American Games.

MAJ Johnson gave kudos to the CMP for its participation in the development of junior shooters in the U.S. in disciplines like three-position air rifle, JROTC programs and schools.

"The CMP has made tremendous leaps and bounds over the last three or four years and I'm sure before long we'll see CMP participants on the podium," he concluded.

For more information about Olympic shooting and shooter biographies, click on the following USA Shooting link http://www.usashooting.com.

NEXT ARTICLE