Shooting Blanks Leaves Uptagrafft With Wounded Ego

The first thing you notice at the Wolf Creek Shooting Complex is the inevitable battalion of security personnel. Your first question is: “Why?”

These athletes need security? They have guns.

Turns out the security personnel are there to bully you into seats from which you cannot see a thing, not that you could see a thing even you paid a scalper for a bleacher on the backside of your favorite marksman. This sport can’t be trusted to the naked eye. Gold medals in Olympic shooting have been decided by margins thinner than Billy Payne’s credibility.

Sure, the concept is simple: he shoots, he scores.

But sometimes he scores a 10 and sometimes a nine, the difference between gut-shooting a mosquito and merely winging it.

On Thursday, the wounded at Wolf Creek included Eric Uptagrafft, but only emotionally. The event was 60 shots with a .22 from the prone position 50 meters away and, alas, the 30-year-old rifleman from Spokane was perfect only 52 times.

His finish was a tie for 30th, his consolation prize a resurrection of aspirations he’d once buried.

“It sucked,” he said, with the wry smile that seems to come standard with any topic of conversation. “It just wasn’t a good performance. I started out OK, but there wasn’t any consistency or quality.”

How disappointed was he?

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll be more disappointed as time goes on.”

You look around the Olympics and notice a lot of weaponry for a vehicle of peace. Fists. Bows and arrows. Swords. Cannon balls and spears. To say nothing of guns and ammo.

But the violence and boiling-point passions have been removed, along with the five-day waiting period. No wonder Olympic shooting never makes it on NBC. Maybe if they draped yellow crime-scene tape around the range and brought in Andy Sipowicz for color.

A sport in which lack of action is actually good gets a lot of fun poked at it, but Olympic heartbreak was invented here. In the prone competition of 1908, confused officials let British alternate Philip Plater shoot when they thought only 11 of the country’s allotment of 12 men had fired. Plater set a world record of 391x400 - only to have it discovered that all 12 regular British shooters had indeed competed. His gold medal and record were taken away.

There would be no technicalities Thursday. Germany’s Christian Klees shot a world and Olympic record 600x600 in qualification and 704.8 after the final.

“I brought my (red, white and blue warmup suit) so I could wear it to the awards,” said Uptagrafft. “But I don’t really need it now.

“I visualized all that stuff. I saw myself on the platform and performing good shots. I didn’t come here just to participate, I came here for a medal.”

He based that on winning the U.S. Olympic Trials, a fourth in the Atlanta World Cup and some high scores in pre-Olympic practice shoots. His path to Atlanta as a part-time shooter - he’s on leave from his job as an engineer with Lockheed-Martin in Lakewood, Colo. - who once felt burned out enough on shooting to retire didn’t register as a liability.

Now Uptagrafft thinks maybe it was.

“I thought I was pretty well prepared, but when it came down to game time it wasn’t good enough,” said Uptagrafft, a 1984 graduate of University High School. “People say you’re not supposed to make big decisions at times like this, but I’ll probably try to shoot more full time (at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs) instead of being a part-time shooter.

“I might have to forgo some of the nicer things in life. Like money.”

He remembered this happening in 1989, when he was on the Army shooting team and finished second in the national service-rifle championships.

“That got under my skin,” he said, “so I worked all year long with nothing else in mind than to win nationals the next year. I put a lot into it and it worked out.

“This cycle is a little different. You have to wait four years instead of one.”

If you’re Uptagrafft, you’ll probably have to give up your job - Lockheed has no division in Colorado Springs - but not your equilibrium.

“I still need to find a meaningful job instead of flipping burgers or something,” he said. “You need to have both. If you’re having a bad day at work, then you can go and shoot. If you have a bad day shooting, you’ve still got a real life.”

Knowing how well he’s been able to compete as a part-timer has led Uptagrafft to this crossroads. The disappointment of shooting poorly here will influence his choice.

But among other things, in Atlanta he discovered the secret every first-time Olympian gets let in on.

“They treat you like kings (as an Olympian),” he said. “The rest of the time - until you make the Olympics - you’re a second-class citizen. You don’t have a real job. You haven’t contributed much to society. But, boy, when you get to the Olympics, everybody just goes nuts over you.”

And not for trying to sneak a gun through security. , DataTimes MEMO: You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

This sidebar appeared with the story: LOCAL WATCH How Washington and Idaho athletes fared on Wednesday: Men’s baseball: Travis Lee (Olympia), went hitless in 15-5 U.S. victory over Japan. Women’s basketball: Camille Thompson (ex-WSU), played for Canada in 61-49 loss to China. Women’s cycling: Rebecca Twigg (Seattle), fourth in qualification round of individual pursuit with time of 3:39.849; advances to today’s quarterfinals. Women’s soccer: Michelle Akers (Seattle), U.S. plays scoreless tie with China. Rowing: Karen Kraft (Newport), with partner Missy Schwen, in semifinals of women’s coxless pairs; Jason Scott (Seattle) in men’s coxless fours; Jennifer Devine (UW) in double sculls. Shooting: Eric Uptagrafft (Spokane), tied for 30th in 50-meter free rifle prone; Roger Mar (Seattle) in 25-meter rapid fire pistol.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review