GOING FOR ANOTHER GOLD

OLYMPIC SHOOTING LEGEND KIM RHODE TALKS SHOOTING, TRAINING, AND BRINGING ANOTHER MEDAL HOME FOR THE U.S.

- MIKE SEARSON

We consider Kim Rhode a living national treasure. A competitive shooter from the age of 10, she’s set numerous records as a double trap and skeet shooter in the Olympics.

She was the youngest female gold medalist in the history of Olympic shooting when she medaled at 17. Not one to rest on her laurels, she went on to medal in six consecutive summer Olympics, becoming the first woman to do so, as well as the first Olympian to medal on five different continents with three gold, one silver, and two bronze medals.

Rhode also has an amazing 20 World Cup gold medals and has won countless other honors over the years at state, national, and international levels.

Her family has a long history of hunting and shooting in the American West, and Rhode’s future still has unlimited potential, especially when one considers that the oldest person ever to compete in the Olympics was Oscar Swahn from Sweden, at age 72 back in 1920. Swahn held six medals, himself, including three gold.

RECOIL: How old were you when you first started shooting?

Kim Rhode: Truthfully, I don’t really remember how old I was the first time. I was very young and on a camping trip with my family, and they had me shooting cans and paper plates. I don’t even remember what type of gun it was.

The first time I did it on my own, I was 7 and in Yuma, Arizona, hunting doves with my parents, and the reason I remember it is because the game warden didn’t believe that I shot my own birds.

I was two birds shy of the limit, and the game warden kept saying, ‘Come on honey, you can tell me who shot those birds for you. Nobody is going to get in trouble.’

And I kept saying, ‘I did! I did!’ but he wouldn’t believe me.