Well, hell.

USA's Matt Emmons held a commanding lead in Men's 50m 3-Position Rifle (3P), the final shooting event of the 2008 Olympic Games, just as he did in 2004 in the same event. And, just as in 2004, he blew it on his final shot.

In 2004, Matt shot the wrong target with his final shot, which cost him the Gold medal and gave it to China. In 2008, Matt accidentally fired his rifle too soon on the last shot, scoring a pathetic 4.4 points (his lowest-scoring previous shot was a 9.7) and putting him in fourth place. And guess what? That meant the Gold medal went to China. Again.

Kinda makes you wonder about this guy. Anytime he has the chance to hand a medal over to the Chinese, he does it. Hmmm. At any rate, he was calm and collected after the flub, consoled by his wife Katerina and announcing his belief that something good will come of this mistake yet.

Gold went to China's Qiu Jian, Silver to Yuriy Sukhorukov of Ukraine, and Slovakian Rajmond Debevec took Bronze.

I made a mistake in yesterday's blog post... Apparently Mike Anti, though he won Men's 3P Silver in 2004, didn't shoot in this event this year. No, the only other American competing along with Emmons was Jason Parker, who placed 22nd. Jason placed 23rd in his other 2008 event, Men's 10m Air Rifle.

So much for tying or exceeding the number of shooting medals won by the Chinese this year. China ended up with eight of the 45 Olympic medals awarded for shooting at the 2008 games. The USA followed with six. Tied behind the USA for third place are the Russian Federation and Germany, both with four Olympic Shooting medals apiece.

Yeeee-haw! Vincent Hancock pulled through in Men's Skeet, winning a Gold medal for the USA at the age of 19. This is a very good thing, for several reasons... the most important of which is, I was rooting for him! Also, it helps bring the USA closer to the top spot in shooting medals. Vince won medal number six for the USA Shooting team, but China still looms above, with a total of seven.

Here's hoping that the USA comes through tomorrow, with their last chance at a medal in Olympic Shooting. The final event will be Men's 50m Rifle 3-Positions, and we have a couple American riflemen, namely Mike Anti and Matt Emmons, that have a pretty good shot at winning.

But back to Vince Hancock - he led the way into the final with a one-point lead (121 vs. a 3-way tie for second at 120). In the final, the only shooter of the six to shoot better than 24 was Tore Brovold of Norway, who shot 25, tying Vince's total of 145.

During a shoot-off for Gold, Vince busted four targets and Brovold broke three, leaving Vince standing proud and tall at the top of the heap. Bronze went to France's Anthony Terras, who was tied with Antonis Nikolaidis of Cyprus at 144 after the finals. Terras won that shoot-off 3-2.

The only other American shooter in Men's Skeet was Randal McLelland, who placed 11th.

In Men's 25m Rapid Fire Pistol, American soldier Keith Sanderson, who made history by winning the USA's first chance to compete in this event since 1996, led the pack after qualifying but then failed to keep his momentum, ending up in fifth place. Not bad, but it sure would have made a better story if he had won the Gold!

Gold went to Oleksandr Petriv of the Ukraine. It's no surprise that German shooters won the other two medals, with Ralf Schumann winning Silver and the much younger Christian Reitz winning Bronze.