Sharpshooter

This is an old sports article. Coincidently written just a month or two before I left the whole official journalism business... Or was made to leave because of the whole office politicis...
Oh well, I did have some very fond memories at the New Straits Times. After all, I grew up and learned English reading the daily. It's just the whole political game of pandering to the powers-that-be is just too much....


Publication :
NST
Edition :
2*
Date :
28/08/2001
Page Number :
38
Headline :
Only cool heads count
Words :
657
Byline :
By Radzi Sapiee
Text :
TAKE a 50 cent coin and place it 10 metres away. Now, take aim with a pistol and try to shoot a hole in it. Tough? Maybe not for the national shooting team preparing for the Kuala Lumpur
Sea Games. For the national shooters who will compete at the Games next month, shooting a target that small is not a problem. The challenge is to hit it right at the centre and everyone who understands a bit of physics, know this is easier said then done.
The principle is every reaction carries an opposite reaction. In a gun, the force that shoots out a bullet is countered by a recoil which a shooter must absorb properly. Failure to do so will cause the the nozzle of the gun to move away from the intended line of fire and you'll be off target.
Now imagine the 50 cent coin divided into ten equally-spaced concentric circles. The smallest circle which in shooting contains the bulls-eye should have a diameter one-tenth of the original circle while its size is only one per cent of the whole coin. In the preliminary rounds of the 10-metre events like the air pistol and air rifle, one could shoot within that area for a perfect score of 10 but come the final, a 10-pointer shot is considered just good.
One must try for the dead centre where you can get a perfect point of 11 but even a 10.1 point shot, just slightly inside the smallest circle is considered excellent enough. Thus pressure plays a big part in shooting.
Breathing at the wrong moment, or a high heart-beat rate is a definite no-no. Pull the trigger at the wrong moment and the slight twitch caused by even the inner mechanism of the body is enough to put one off contention. Don't even try to shoot when your fingers are a little shaky.
Former world champion, Ukraine-born Irina Maharani said among the measures needed to be on target is to lower her heartbeat to about 54-per minutes or so. For the record, the heart-rate of a reasonably fit human when calm is 70.
Hameleay Abdul Mutalib, who won a gold at the South-East Asia Shooting Championships in Bangkok last month, relies more on getting the correct "rythm", to be in-sync with all body movements from breathing to heart-beat.
Other events which use the 25m or 50m ranges or clay shooting can afford bigger margins of error but the same principle still applies. One must be very still and relaxed to get the job done but since this is not always possible, one must be able to minimise all disturbances - at least for a
shot.
That is why National Shooting Association of Malaysia (NSAM) secretary Mej Jasni Shaari downplayed the results achieved at the SM Yong Trophy held at the Subang range last weekend, although it was the last national meet before the Games.
Before the SM Yong Trophy was held, Jasni predicted that the Games shooters will not break any records, nor show any significant improvement and he was right on target.
"What is more important is not to place the shooters under any kind of pressure," he said.
The 1998 Commonwealth Games air rifle champion Nurul Hudda Baharin was placed under the spotlight and she finished seventh in the event on Thursday against a field of local shooters while none of her Games team-mates made the top five.
Jasni, when asked to comment on Nurul's finish, said that the event is no longer on their Games medal target list although a few months back, Nurul was expected to deliver the gold.
Pressure will definitely decide the Games shooting medal tally at the end of the day. So the less pressure their shooters are under it, the more medals will come Malaysia's way. radzisapiee@nstp.com.my
(END)