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Miculek shoots 'as fast and as much as possible' to win
By Steve Bowman
Special to GOG
|  | | Winner Jerry Miculek, center, is flanked by runner-up Doug Koenig, left, and Mike Cumming (third). |
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — Jerry Miculek's strategy of "shoot as fast and as much as possible" was golden.
Miculek, of Princeton, La., won the gold medal in the Rifle Target competition of the ESPN Great Outdoor Games by posting four of the fastest rounds of the competition, including a GO Games record 17 seconds. The time was 10 seconds quicker than the fastest posted by any competitor in the qualifying round.
"You have to be able to pull the trigger, and let it fly," said Miculek, a nine-time International Revolver Champion.
For the second year in a row, Doug Koenig won the silver medal. Mike Cumming was the bronze medalist.
While Miculek blazed through the competition, the final rounds were punctuated by a first-round upset of 2000 gold medalist, Bob Mastroianni.
"When it's a one-run-and-done-type of competition, then anything can happen," Koenig said. "That may have actually turned the tide. Without Bob (Mastroianni) in Miculek's bracket, there was no one to push him. It made a huge impact, because he could run through the bracket without having to really bear down until the final."
The shooters in the contest competed in a head-to-head bracketed format, where two shooters stood side-by-side and raced each other to see who could shoot 14 targets the quickest.
The targets included a horizontal row of 10 targets, varying from 3- to 6-inches. Once those were down, shooters switched to the "tree," a horizontal row of four targets, starting from the bottom with a 3½-inch circle and ending at the top with a 1½-inch circle.
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You have to be able to pull the trigger, and let it fly. ” |
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— Gold medalist Jerry Miculek |
The game measures accuracy and speed. But while most of the competitors concentrated more on accuracy, Miculek seemed to concentrate more on speed.
"I had plenty of bullets," he said.
In the first round, he shot 27 rounds to down the 14 targets in just over 30 seconds. In the second round, he spent another 27 rounds in under 30 seconds and in the third, record-setting round, he shot 17 times to knock the 14 targets down and eliminate Bruce Piatt.
"It's because I like you, Bruce," Miculek said after the round. "That way it's a clean kill. I didn't want you to stagger and stumble."
Ironically, Miculek's slowest round came in the final against Koenig. But the pace was offset when Miculek beat Koenig through the horizontal targets and started on the tree targets. To slow the pace down, Koenig began shooting Miculek's targets, returning them to an upright position and forcing Miculek to shoot them again.
"I was one target away from winning and he hit two of mine," Miculek said. "But he ran out of ammo. When he went down for a reload, I was up and running."
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