Pistol clinches gold at national meet
The MIT Engineers won gold in both women’s air and women’s sport, placing 1st in the women’s team aggregate and remaining undefeated in the women’s events this season.
Jackie Wu ’16 placed gold in standard pistol, bronze in women’s sport and bronze in women’s individual aggregate. Rookie Julie Kim ’18 placed bronze in women’s air. William Wong ’17 brought home the gold in men’s 40-shot air, closely followed by team captain Nicholas Fine ’16 with silver.
This year, the NRA Intercollegiate Pistol Championships were held in Ft. Benning, GA on the week of March 11-18, 2016.
The competition consisted of the following events: women’s and men’s 40-shot air pistol, open air pistol, free pistol, women’s and men’s sport pistol, and standard pistol.
Representing the team in women’s air were Wu, Kim and Sonia Zhang ’17, joined by individual competitor Rebekah Cha ’16. Individually, Kim won bronze with a tremendous score of 373 out of a possible 400 points, followed by Wu in 7th place with a 365. The team’s combined score of 1097 earned MIT a gold medal. It was also the second highest score in the history of this event at the nationals. The four competitors finished in 5th place in open air, the 60-shots version of the air event open to both men and women.
On the other side of the range, Wong, Fine and Ryan Gulland ’18 individually competed in men’s 40-shot air. Wong clinched 1st place by one point over Fine in 2nd, scoring 365 and 364 respectively.
The women’s sport competitors included Wu, Zhang, Cha, and Warittha Panasawatwong ’17. Wu placed 3rd (554 out of 600), followed by Cha in 5th (548), and Zhang in 6th (535). Their scores combined placed the team in 1st by a healthy margin. Wu held off a USA Junior National Team member in the finals after the event and took home the bronze medal.
Free pistol was held at an outdoor 50m range in a windy 90ºF weather. Gulland participated as an individual. Wu, Zhang, Cha, and Wong represented the team placing 5th out of 10 teams in the notoriously difficult event.
The four then competed in Standard. Ending in 1st place out of more than 40 competitors, Wu performed flawlessly with 547 out of 600. Cha placed 7th, scoring just one point higher than a USA Junior National team member. During the match, Zhang had multiple malfunctions and decided that continuing with her firearm was too big of a risk. She opted to change firearms with another team member and completed the match with great sportsmanship.