Carrollton's Jon Hall pleased with Olympic debut | News

GREENWICH, UK -- Jonathan Hall's Olympic journey may have been brief, but he's not too disappointed.

The first-time Olympian from Carrollton finished 27th out of 47 shooters in Monday's preliminaries in the 10-meter air rifle competition. 

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"It started off great,'' Hall said. "I think midway through my emotions got to me. The impact of where I'm at, which match this is, really hit me. I tried my best to pull it back together and in toward the end. I'm pleased with my performance.''

Hall recorded a perfect 100 on his first string before dipping to 98 on his second. His overall score was 592.

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There were no cruel last-shot mishaps this time for fellow Team USA shooter Matt Emmons, who also failed to qualify for the finals.

Emmons didn't shoot at the wrong target as he did in 2004 to cost him a second gold medal nor did the trigger go off an instant before he meant to pull it as happened in 2008 that prevented him from winning a gold medal to go with the silver he had already captured.

This time he knew he was in trouble early on. The shooter from Brown Mills, N.J. recorded a score of 590 and finished 35th, eight spots behind Hall 

Not qualifying for the finals seemed beyond Emmons' control, as he recorded 9s on his first two shots of the event.

"My back hurts, man,'' he said. "I haven't been able to figure out, especially in air rifle, what I'm doing with my position that's causing it to hurt so much.''

After scoring a disappointing 97 on his first string, Emmons stepped away from the line following his second shot -- another 9 -- of the second string and spoke to his wife, Katy, a Czech Republic shooter who finished fourth in the 10-meter air rifle.

"She said that my body was just swaying back and forth and I could see that in my hold,'' he said. "When I'm looking through the sights it will come down and settle on the bull and then it will move to the right or to the left and then to the back and then to the hold.

"It's just not consistent. The first couple shots, they came down and then actually settled pretty nice and I'm getting on the trigger and I'm saying, 'OK, we're ready,' and as I'm taking it, it moves just a little to the left and it goes off. There's nothing I can do about it.''

Emmons appeared only mildly disappointed in his performance. The air rifle is not his specialty and he should be more competitive in the 50-meter three position competition Monday, Aug. 6.

"There was a time when I was world-wide competitive for sure, but it's been at least or three or four years since that's really been happening,'' he said. "Over the last three or four years my top end scores -- 596, 597 -- would barely scrape into the final here. The last really good score that I shot was three years ago.''