WillBrink
04-30-16, 06:38
Kim Rhode is hoping to win an Olympic medal in Rio this summer, as she did at each of the preceding five Summer Games. That would make her the first American ever to win a medal at six different Olympics. Swimmer Michael Phelps has climbed the podium at only three.
If Rhode stands relatively anonymously on the cusp of American Olympic history, that’s because her sport is less popular than swimming, and lots more controversial. She shoots a shotgun. At the London Games, which started days after a mass shooting at a movie theater in Colorado, Rhode and other Team USA shooters received anonymous online death threats, requiring additional security.
“Our sport has an unfortunate stigma attached to it,” says Rhode, a 36-year-old Southern Californian. Following December’s deadly shooting rampage in nearby San Bernardino, the media sought out comment from Rhode, who expressed sorrow for the victims and support for gun rights. Why should that crime have placed her in the spotlight? she asks: “You don’t hear them asking Nascar drivers to comment on crimes involving cars.”
‘You don’t hear them asking Nascar drivers to comment on crimes involving cars.’
—Three-time gold medalist Kim Rhode
The very thing that makes shooting the most controversial Olympic sport—its use of guns—also provides a strong base of support. When Rhode visits Cabela’s, the outdoors sporting-goods retailer, mobs of fans seek her autograph. Along with Winchester, Beretta and several other firearms-related concerns, Cabela’s sponsors Rhode. “Compared with other sports, we have a massive industry behind us,” says Rhode, a wife and mother who says she’s the “primary breadwinner.”
Cont:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-stigmatized-olympians-1460673461
If Rhode stands relatively anonymously on the cusp of American Olympic history, that’s because her sport is less popular than swimming, and lots more controversial. She shoots a shotgun. At the London Games, which started days after a mass shooting at a movie theater in Colorado, Rhode and other Team USA shooters received anonymous online death threats, requiring additional security.
“Our sport has an unfortunate stigma attached to it,” says Rhode, a 36-year-old Southern Californian. Following December’s deadly shooting rampage in nearby San Bernardino, the media sought out comment from Rhode, who expressed sorrow for the victims and support for gun rights. Why should that crime have placed her in the spotlight? she asks: “You don’t hear them asking Nascar drivers to comment on crimes involving cars.”
‘You don’t hear them asking Nascar drivers to comment on crimes involving cars.’
—Three-time gold medalist Kim Rhode
The very thing that makes shooting the most controversial Olympic sport—its use of guns—also provides a strong base of support. When Rhode visits Cabela’s, the outdoors sporting-goods retailer, mobs of fans seek her autograph. Along with Winchester, Beretta and several other firearms-related concerns, Cabela’s sponsors Rhode. “Compared with other sports, we have a massive industry behind us,” says Rhode, a wife and mother who says she’s the “primary breadwinner.”
Cont:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-stigmatized-olympians-1460673461