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| Athletes had several classroom sessions over the
3 day Paralympic Camp covering a wide range of topics to better aid their training once they returned home. |
U. S. Paralympic Shooting coach Dan Durben hopes to develop a strong team for the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. Dan Jordan, the new coach of the Alaska Fairbanks Rifle Team, was the only U.S. shooter to qualify for the 2004 Athens Paralympics so athlete development programs are desperately needed to increase U. S. representation. An initial step toward change took place on October 21-23 when the first Paralympic Shooting Camp was held by Durben and assistant Paralympic coach Sommer Wood. The camp was attended by a strong pool of athletes who participated in three days of intense training in both pistol and rifle.
The camp was hosted by Mike Kelly and the Lakeshore Foundation, http://www.lakeshore.org, in Birmingham, Alabama. Lakeshore became an official training site for U.S. Paralympics in 2003 and hosts many Paralympic events. Kelly had several of his Lakeshore athletes in attendance at the camp, and provides coaching for athletes during the year at the facilities range. “The support from the Lakeshore Foundation was outstanding. What an excellent facility and what a wonderful place to hold events like this,” said
Durben.
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| Athletes were able to shoot on SCATT, a laser training system provided by the CMP that tracks the shooters hold on the target. |
The camp was packed with information and covered a wide range of topics from advanced shooting techniques to obtaining qualifying scores for international matches. U.S. Paralympics’ official Sports Psychologist Dr. Jim Hilyer attended, and held two sessions for the group on relaxation and visualization. The Civilian Marksmanship Program also provided a SCATT laser training system for the camp.
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| Dan Durben discussing
a training session with the group in the range. For many of the athletes in
attendance this was their first opportunity to work with the National Paralympic Coach. |
“I was very impressed with the enthusiasm and potential of the athletes that attended the Camp. I hope the work that we did as a group helps them develop a strong personal training program from which they will understand exactly what they need to do to accomplish their goals. If this group of athletes continues to train hard and train smart I think we will see them developing into medal contenders by the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing,” said Durben.
For more information on Paralympic Shooting or Paralympic Sports go to http://www.paralympic.org, or http://www.usparalympics.com.
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