ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, July 15, 1996 TAG: 9607150137
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
Ben Amonette's Delta Connection from Atlanta to Roanoke was running late. It was due at 3:30 p.m., but well before that the ticket counter had posted a ``delayed to 4 p.m.'' notice. Then ``delayed to 4:20.''
Outside the terminal, Amonette's 72-year-old dad, Bill, shuffled his brown Honda in the five-minute loading zone.
As 5 p.m. approached, the plane touched down, but Amonette's luggage wasn't on it. Not just your typical bring-home-your-dirty-laundry luggage, either. Missing was the metal case that holds his two guns. It was back in Atlanta - or somewhere.
Amonette, who lives in Radford, is a member of the U.S. Olympic Shooting Team. The 41-year-old shooter will be the only athlete from Southwest Virginia competing in Atlanta.
When he got separated from his guns last week, following a final practice in Atlanta before settling into the Olympic Village, you would have expect him to be steamed. But Amonette remained cool.
``It has happened before,'' he said.
The airport caper provided a revealing glimpse of what it takes to be a world-class shooter - steady nerves, whether in an airport complaint line or on the Olympic firing line. Shooters don't get far with trembling hands and accelerated breaths, Amonette said.
``The sport is 90 percent mental,'' he said. ``You can teach anybody to hold up a gun. The physical fundamentals aren't that hard to learn. It is nearly all mental.
``The Olympics, if you let it, will put a tremendous amount of pressure on you. If I were a 100-meter sprinter, that adrenaline flow would help me. But in shooting, that adrenaline flow will make my hands shake.''
For that reason, Amonette will bypass the opening ceremonies in Atlanta. Yes, that's a huge sacrifice. The ceremonies were a highlight of his trip to the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
``I stood right next to Carl Lewis. It made me realize that, compared to him, I am just a squirt in sports, but, by gosh, I am standing on this field next to him. I belong here just as much as he does.''
Amonette got Lewis' autograph, and also Magic Johnson's and was working up the nerve to approach Charles Barkley when the lights went out for the ceremonies. When they came back on, Barkley was gone.
``In Atlanta, we drive by the Olympic Stadium every day going to the range,'' Amonette said. ``I am saying, `I hate not to see inside that stadium.' But I shoot competitive the next day. They are going to the ceremonies and everybody is going to be hollering and whooping and having a big time until about 1 o'clock in the morning. The buses aren't scheduled to get back to the village until about 2 o'clock.''
The journey to Atlanta has been too long to squander even on a night of a lifetime, Amonette said.
It started when he was about 10 years old and his dad, a medical doctor, bought him a shotgun. Later, Ben Amonette moved to handguns and rifles.
``When he was very young, he would shoot crows at 200 yards with a rifle and groundhogs at real long distances,'' Bill Amonette said. ``He had the good eye.''
``I shot over 12 years to make that first Olympics,'' Ben Amonette said.
In Barcelona, he competed in the same two disciplines in which he will shoot in Atlanta: the air pistol and the free pistol.
``In Barcelona, I was eight points behind the person who won the gold medal in air pistol,'' he said. ``In free pistol, I was 12 points behind,''
Atlanta offers a ``home-field'' advantage - the same time zone, familiar food, a chance to practice on the ranges of competition, family members (wife, son, mom, dad, brothers, sister) - in close support.
It will take all of that, plus a flawless performance, Amonette said, if he has any chance of standing on the top pedestal of the Olympic stage listening to the ``Star Spangled Banner,'' an Olympic gold medal around his neck.
``Of course, everybody who goes would like to win a medal,'' he said. ``I have the ability to win a medal, but I don't think about it in those terms.
``The only thing that would enable me to win would be to go to the competition and be completely, 100 percent focused in the techniques of shooting a successful shot.''
Amonette believes he is more focused now than in 1992. Certainly, he is more experienced.
``I don't have the experience of shooting the top world-class scores like the people who are winning. I am just that much behind them,'' he said, revealing a fraction of an inch between his thumb and forefinger.
That narrow distance would be closed if Amonette had something better than a ``cow pasture'' for a near-home practice range, his dad believes.
But Amonette is grateful a couple of friends give him access to their pasture near Radford, and he has adjusted to something considerably less than the kind of first-class facility shooters from Europe and Asia enjoy.
``It goes to show, you don't have to have the best of everything to excel in a sport, or make it to the Olympics,'' he said.
Five days before the shooting trials in Atlanta, Amonette took a new job with Alliant Techsystems, a manufacturer of shooting powder that happens to have a range in New Jersey where he was sent for company training.
Amonette's guns, by the way, caught up with him a few hours after he landed in Roanoke. He was scheduled to fly back to Atlanta on Sunday.
The shooting sports will be the first events out of the gate at the Olympics. Amonette competes July 20 (air pistol) and July 23 (free pistol). The 31-member U.S. shooting team is expected to capture some of the early medals. Shotgun and rifle position look especially strong, said Nancy Moore, of the USA Shooting staff.
LENGTH: Long : 129 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM Staffby CNB1. No fancy practice range for Ben Amonette. He shoots from a
shed on a friend's cow pasture near his home in Radford....
2. BEN AMONETTE will compete in two events - air pistol and free
pistol. ``The guns are different, but technique-wise, it is the
same,'' he said.