Olympic gold medalist and U.S. Air Force Academy Rifle Coach Launi Meili was the keynote speaker at the First Shot Ceremony for the 2024 CMP National Matches at Camp Perry, Ohio, on July 15.
Boasting a career of more than 50 years with multiple marksmanship entities. Meili holds multiple shooting records and hall of fame inductions and is the first American woman to ever win an Olympic gold medal in smallbore rifle (Barcelona 1992). She remains the only woman to compete in both air rifle and smallbore at two separate Olympic Games.
During the ceremony, Meili addressed the crowd by recounting her illustrious career—the good and the bad.
“You may see my picture with a gold medal and think, ‘Wow, she probably has natural talent.’ I have to say, my very first match, I came in last place,” she said. “I also have to say, when I shot at the collegiate level, the highest I ever placed was sixth. So, not a lot of natural talent—what it was, was a lot of hard work.”
Meili explained how she traveled the world early in her career, ultimately locking her into the sport. The passion for it took her to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs where she worked full-time to achieve her goal—an Olympic medal. In 1988, she performed well at World Cup events and was predicted to win a medal at the Olympic Games in Seoul—even setting an Olympic record in the preliminaries.
With confidence, she entered the final in Seoul in first place. Unfortunately, her nerves got the best of her as her legs began to shake, and she fell from first to sixth place and missed out on her dream.
“Again, not a lot of natural talent,” she said. “I had to work another four years.”
Many around her, at the time, asked if it was worth the sacrifice of another four years of her life to return to the Olympic stage, to which she replied, “Is the bigger sacrifice to quit? Or is the bigger sacrifice to keep going?”
“I learned from that final, and I worked on it every single day for four years,” Meili said.
Her hard work paid off as she made the 1992 Olympic team and set yet another Olympic record in smallbore before again heading into the final in first place.
“This time, I had a better plan,” she said. “It carried me through, and I ended up with a gold medal.”
As she concluded her story to the ceremony crowd, by surprise, Meili lifted an object from the podium—the actual gold medal she had won in Barcelona.
“I encourage people to touch this,” Meili said. “Over 10,000 kids have touched this, and that’s very important to me. Shooting’s been good for me. It’s been a great journey, and it’s important to share. It’s important to see that starting out with very little talent can get you to where you want to be, with a lot of hard work.”
As an aside, she noted she was proud to have the same medal as Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and others from the “Dream Team”—the famous gold-medal-winning basketball team also from the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games.
“And they needed a whole team to win!” she teased. “In our sport, it doesn’t matter how tall you are, how fast you are, how strong you are—it just depends on how hard you want to work. Anybody can become a good shooter.”
“Set your goals, keep working on them, and you’re going to get there,” Meili concluded.
For the first shot, Meili used the gold-plated 1907 Standard .22 caliber rifle that was presented to her in 1993 at SHOT Show by Dieter Anschütz, the owner and president of Anschütz Rifles. It was personally made for Meili after winning the gold medal in Barcelona and had been on display at the USA Shooting Hall of Fame.
The occasion marked the rifle’s first-ever firing on an outdoor range.
As any good markswoman would do, Meili carefully placed her shooting glasses on her face and hearing protection over her ears. She lifted the rifle to her eyeline to prepare her sights, then, when ready, she pulled the trigger. A tiny click was heard from the quiet rifle, followed by, comically, an enormous blast from a pyrotechnic target 600 yards downrange. The crowd laughed as Meili smiled.
Afterwards, Meili graciously took photos with guests and allowed them to hold her gold medal.
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