Olympic Champion Material
Desire
When I was a kid we had a visit at school during the classes, from a local sport shooting club that tried to initiate some of the youngsters to join them. They have shown us air rifles and handguns, brought paper targets and some of us got really excited in trying ourselves out in sport shooting. Our country had some Olympic medalists in various disciplines and we could all easily see ourselves in that role.
A couple of us went to the shooting club the next day, became members and started regularly going to their shooting range, having a lot of fun several times a week. The scent at the shooting range, small bullets between our fingers, odour of the leather uniforms, targets bringing closer with a motorized target changer to see how your shot was – everything was such fun… Even waiting for your turn to shoot when it was crowded was not a problem.
Rifle
After a few months, there was an elderly man present during one of ours junior training sessions. He started commenting on how we were handling the rifles, reminding us of the breathing technique, standing posture and other important details.
But every time I checked my target after the shot, it was a bigger and bigger nightmare – this was NOT my day… No hits in the black… I was much better the previous days… Why was he here to check on us just now when I missed everything…
He came to my position and waited for me to fire one bullet and then drew the target back himself. What a disgrace, I thought… He took the target in his hand, asked for my name and wrote it down on the back of it. I am now close to fainting knowing nothing could fix this. The world is collapsing and everyone is probably looking towards me knowing I blew it. He started talking in the calmest voice: „Your rifle is not good!“. I expected a joke on me, so I tried to keep as quiet as possible. He started talking louder so that everyone could hear him: „You are missing shots, but I can see you have talent!“. I tried to calm myself down thinking he might still be joking about it, but then – a turnover.
He said to me: „All your shots are in the white, but they are grouped. When you finish with training leave the rifle on that desk, we need to fix its sight. And I want you tomorrow afternoon at the seniors training session!“. All of my friends were grinning with approval and support, but all of that was nothing compared to the fact that my world actually did not collapse that day.
Organization
The next day I came to the seniors training looking for a familiar face. Not a soul I recognized was around. Everyone had their own training, all of the rifles were taken, it was even a bit crowded. I tried to look around for that old guy who saved my world yesterday, but he was nowhere to be found. I sat down aside, looking around and waiting for a chance. An hour passed quickly, so I started helping out the seniors, but I finally saw it was such a loss of time. I went out of the shooting range feeling angry at myself, angry at that old man, angry at my friends for our idea of starting training sport shooting.
I never went to that club again… I found another sport to start training…
And what does one know – maybe I could have been an Olympic champion?
Perhaps if I had been more persistent? If I went to the seniors session again and again waiting for my chance? Or even if I tried myself out in another club?
I learned one thing, though. You cannot be an Olympic champion without these things:
- Talent
- Solid rifle
- Good organization
- Desire
So if you are aware of having talent, but your rifle is not a good one, you are not backed up with organization to manage and lead you. See if your desire is still there and you stay up for fulfilling it. Check if you are in the right session… Check if you are in the right shooting range… Check if you are even at the right club…
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