Giuseppe Di Salvatore: young and ready, Teenage Olympian is Canada's best male trap shooter

[jody]

For those who say "guns are designed only to kill".

Teenage Olympian is Canada's best male trap shooter

Giuseppe Di Salvatore was seven years old when his dad convinced him to shoot a gun for the first time. He had tagged along on a trip to the Vancouver Gun Club and found himself scared, gun in hand, uncertainly taking aim.

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Now 18, he’s Canada’s top male trap shooter. Di Salvatore is a teenager competing in a sport where athletes typically peak in their 30s. He’ll likely be the youngest shooter at the Beijing Olympic Games.

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Trap shooters aim at 125 clay pigeons that zip around at upwards of 100 mph, making focus an integral part of the sport. Di Salvatore says it’s 90 per cent mental.

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Though Di Salvatore makes little of his age compared to that of his competitors, it’s hard to ignore. When he accepted his bronze medal at the 2007 Pan American Games, he was standing on the podium with two guys in their 40s. Di Salvatore was 17.

[Rick Myers]

1. Trap shooting has always amazed me...

The mental prep is everything... You can buy a great gun, but hitting those clay things at 100mph???

[Arctic Dave]

2. I LOVED trap shooting as a kid.

Watching them vaporize was pure joy.

[iverglas]

3. and off to Outdoor Life with it

Just because jody is obsessed with Canada, that's no reason for such puffery in the Guns forum, eh?

[east texas lib]

4. Well that's the pot calling the kettle black...

Given your apparent obsession with the author of the OP. Everybody needs a hobby though, eh? LOL:)

[michreject]

6. Or obsession with the United States

and the gun laws.

[bossy22]

5. who died and made you a mod?

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

10. The comment probably keeps it here in guns.

[spin]

7. Canadians can shoot, check this out...

Killing shot made at distance of 2,430 metres{/b]
*******
Capt. Paul Madej, Operation Enduring Freedom chaplain, who debriefed the Canadians, described them: "The Canadian snipers are professional, well-trained soldiers who walked into harm's way and fulfilled their mission. They represent the best and they have our respect."

http://www.snipercountry.com/articles/killingshot_2430metres.asp

But they did use U.S. rounds.

[jody]

8. Ability to hit targets at such distances depends upon fantastic skill to estimate wind & mirage

and wind can shift directions over the distance.

[iverglas]

9. yeah

I've heard tell it's been broken since, but:

http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20070425_112319_9404

Record-breaking snipers were treated fairly: Canadian Forces ombudsman

Report dismisses claims that award-winning sharpshooters were hung out to dry

hey were the first Canadian troops to taste combat in Afghanistan. It was March 2002, back when 9/11 was still fresh and Canada’s coffin count was still zero. For nine days and nine nights, a team of Edmonton army snipers marched up and down the infamous Shahikot Valley, hunting al-Qaeda fighters and destroying enemy hideouts. By the time Operation Anaconda was over, the Canadian sharpshooters had reset the bar of their elite profession. One member of the unit—Cpl. Rob Furlong—broke the all-time combat record, killing another man from 2,430 m away.

They were the toast of the base. “Like rock stars,” said one fellow soldier. The Americans who worked beside them were so impressed with the snipers’ handiwork that they nominated all five men for the coveted Bronze Star medal. Yet within days, their heroics were forgotten, overshadowed by gruesome allegations that two of the snipers—Master Cpl. Graham Ragsdale and Cpl. Arron Perry—sliced a finger off an enemy corpse. The accusation never panned out; after a 10-month probe, the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (NIS) said there wasn’t enough evidence to lay criminal charges. But the damage was already done. Furlong, Perry and Ragsdale were on their way out of the army, convinced, to this day, that the Forces had hung them out to dry.

I actually don't recall hearing about the incident so don't have an opinion about what happened or didn't happen. I would have hoped our military had learned its lesson after the horrorshow put on by the Airborne in Somalia and the millions of dollars spent investigating that one ...


And of course there's always good old Linda Thom. Haven't heard a peep out of her right-wing mouth for a while.

http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/shooting/story/2008/05/05/f-olympics-shooting-history.html

While shooting remains an amateur sport with a limited following in Canada, it did have its 15 minutes of fame during the 1952 Olympics, thanks to George Genereux, a young Saskatoon marksman. Canada had two silver medals to its credit and was despairing of winning gold in any sport when the 17-year-old Genereux beat the entire field by just one target in the trap event.

His gold medal not only brought instant fame, but for his achievement he was named Canadian Athlete of the Year, beating out the likes of hockey great Gordie Howe.

Canada's last Olympic shooting medal was Linda Thom's gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Games in the air pistol event.

Five-time Olympian Susan Nattrass turned in Canada’s best performance in women’s trap shooting with a sixth place finish at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.

Frankly, I think the thing is that there really just isn't much interest in the sport here. This is one of the most urban nations in the world, and urbanites just don't tend to take up shooting sports. I'd also suspect that it isn't a pastime historically practised by the cultures many of our immigrants come from, and with about 1 in 5 Canadians being non-native born and all, that would be another strike against it.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Thom

In the 1995 Ontario general election, she ran as a Progressive Conservative against Dalton McGuinty for the riding of Ottawa South but was defeated.

McGuinty is Premier of Ontario now, of course.

We don't go in for negative campaigning up here, but when we do, it's pretty funny. This is Dalton:



Separated at birth? --



Dalton gets called Norman a lot. But the best was the Conservative email that leaked out.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030912.wonta0912/BNStory/National/

The bizarre insult, contained in a statement e-mailed to media representatives shortly before lunchtime, immediately deflected attention from the health-care agenda that the Conservatives had hoped to pitch Friday.

"Dalton McGuinty," the statement said. "He's an evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet."

"I'm not apologizing, but I am acknowledging that it certainly went over the top," <Conservative Leader Ernie Eves> said. "Somebody had a weird sense of humour and we will try to ensure that it doesn't happen again. We'll give the (staff) less coffee."

All grist for the Guns forum, I guess.