zone.
An American with a three point lead, guaranteed, you would have thought gold, shoots the target of the competitor next to him.
The Austrian (I think) has two shots on his target and the American none.
How in gods name could you shoot the wrong target, this is becoming stranger and stranger…
I don’t know anything about this event. But shooting another target is not hard depending on the range (both the distance and where you’re shooting 
), type of sights, location of targets, etc. I saw it happen on KD (known distance) ranges in the Army all the time, because the targets were close together. If you were concentrating a little too much on your sight picture and not paying attention to everything else…it was easy to make a mistake, and that was with open iron sights.
That said, there’s a little difference between a soldier three weeks out of basic training and an olympic class shooter, and I would expect an olympic shooter to be paying attention.
Chris
Yes, note she did not make that mistake here, getting in or out of the water.
From what I heard from the commentary “Crossfire” (shooting another target) isn’t as uncommon as one might think.
I saw it and you could tell how he was feeling by the look on his face. He fired his rifle, realized what he did, and called the judges attention to it. I don’t care what country you’re from, you had to feel for this guy. I didn’t see any of the late night shows, but I can just imagine the jokes folks are making at his expense.
Gold Medal to 8th place on one mistake. That’s gotta be tough to live with … especially if he never makes it to another Olympics.
Yep, Matt Emmons shot for our local University of Alaska Fairbanks and won numerous NCAA championships, so we were all pulling for him. He did win gold in the previous event (standing or prone). This was the 50 meter, three position event. He’s acknowledged as best in the world in this event. Had the big lead and only had to hit the target on his final shot to win gold. Usually notes the lane marker and then lowers his gun to the target. This time he was so focused on the target that he didn’t check the lane, and the rest is sadly history.