Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 18, 1993 TAG: 9307200563
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The pulse-quickener was just getting there, on twisty roads where a hitchhiking fawn nearly leaped into the passenger seat of a reporter's compact car, which had to navigate dirt, gravel and rock roads cut out of some Franklin County hills.
Once at the range, however, an event was going on that coordinator Harvey Bulaski called "as laid-back as it can be."
The patient muzzle-loaders drizzled the grainy powder down the barrel, placed a round bullet on a swatch of cotton and packed the mixture firmly.
Raise the barrel, sight, fire - if you're good, hear the ping of the iron target keeling - and do it all over again.
The Commonwealth Games of Virginia, an Olympics-style sports festival, continues today with 18 events at venues mostly in the Roanoke Valley.
Some shooters, such as Roanoke resident Bucky Moore, make their own guns, usually by buying pre-made components and putting them together, customizing as they go. Saturday afternoon, Moore leisurely plunked five iron gamebird targets, then chatted about his gun.
"It's the pleasure that you made something that works," he said.
Competition with black-powder guns, overcome by technology in the late 1800s, is far more popular at the Commonwealth Games than the Olympic-style rifles competition.
"If you haven't got the modern, expensive equipment, you're not competitive," Moore said of those rifles. "With this, it really doesn't matter because you're just standing there shooting. It's not a race in equipment."
\ At least one sport at the Games uses no equipment except the human body: judo.
And at least one competitor in judo can use his body better than just about anybody else: Gus Daniels.
It took Daniels about a minute or two to toss away Terry Simpson in the 189 pounds-and-under gold-medal match at Jefferson High School.
Daniels' throw of Simpson scored an Ippon, defined in judo as a full-point winning score. For Daniels, a 35-year-old U.S. Marine gunnery sergeant, throws like that don't only occur on the mat.
"En route to a tournament, I visualize myself in certain situations," Daniels said. "If a person tries this technique, I see myself doing this technique. When I see it on the mat, it's just instinctive. Sometimes I do it and I don't even realize I did it."
Something else Daniels did Saturday: He dislocated his left thumb seconds into his first match.
"The adrenaline hadn't really gotten out of me yet. I felt it happen and it didn't hurt, so I popped it back in place before it started to hurt," Daniels said.
Daniels' judo rank is fourth degree; the highest is 10th degree. He won a bronze medal in the 209-under weight class at the national tournament last April in Indianapolis. He is a nine-time Marine Corps champion and a three-time Armed Forces champion, and he says he has about 198 trophies and medals.
As decorated as he is in judo, Daniels said he has seen no live combat action in 16 years as a Marine. He is stationed in Jacksonville, N.C., with the 2nd Light Armored Infantry Battalion, 2nd Marine Division.
"I have all the rank, but I have no [combat] ribbons," he said. "All that means is I've been safe."
The same can't be said of his opponents.
"The secret is keeping your body conditioned, and don't miss practice," Daniels said. "Any kind of training clinics, tournament - I don't miss many of those."
\ In other Games events Saturday:
Track and field coordinator Richard Pitts said the presence of at least five track clubs - from Roanoke, Pulaski, Williamsburg, Tidewater and Northern Virginia - contributed to a record-breaking day at the scholastic competition at Salem High School.
Fourteen records were set, 11 in track events. Double record-setters included Maurice Lee of Christiansburg in the boys' 9-10 high jump (4 feet) and 400-meter run (1 minute, 8.6 seconds); Paul Moyer of Roanoke in the boys' 13-14 100-meters (11.6) and 200-meters (24.0); Demare Gill of Roanoke in the boys' 11-12 200-meters (28.0) and 400-meters (1:01.8); and Tiffany Mitchell of Roanoke in the girls' 9-10 200-meters (31.8) and 400-meters (1:13.01).
Charlottesville's Gene Siler beat two Arlington race-walkers - Claude A. Letieh and Valerie A. Meyer - for the gold in the 10-kilometer event with a time of 1 hour, 2 minutes. Lynchburg's Bob Conley won the 4K walk in 24:57. Both events were held in Lynchburg.
Roanoke's John Hawthorne, who runs for Virginia Tech, won the men's overall 5-mile run through downtown Roanoke in 26:12. Fellow Hokie Christy Shell won the women's overall in 31:56.
At Moyer Sports Complex in Salem, 257 Grocery from Harrisonburg advanced to the quarterfinals of the fast-pitch softball tournament but lost a semifinal game Saturday night to Gretna 9-8. 257 Grocery was 16th in the national fast-pitch tournament last year.
At River's Edge Sports Complex, Roanoke residents Amanda Bounds and Armistead Lemon won the gold medal in a three-team field in girls' 18-under doubles tennis by beating Roanoke residents Gretchen Vanderhill and Danielle Dunkin 4-6, 6-2, 6-2. In singles, Lemon beat Roanoke's Shannon Vittur, the defending champion, 6-3, 6-3 to reach today's 10 a.m. final against Richmond's Sarah Driscoll. Driscoll beat Roanoke's Amy Speas 7-5, 6-1.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***