A special thanks to Dr. Georg Plenikowski, President of Nammo, for sharing this picture with NRAblog. From left to right: Plenikowski, NRA Executive Director of General Operations Kayne Robinson, Deputy Executive Director Andrea Cerwinske, NRA President Ron Schmeits, and  ANSCHÜTZ's Dieter Anschütz.

Plenikowski and Anschütz met with NRA executives, talking about the firearms industry and competitive shooting.

"The NRA has many great friends around the world, including Anschütz," Robinson said. "They are a true leader of the industry."

"What a gentleman," Schmeits said of Anschütz, noting the Anschütz Rifle won 9 of the 10 Olympic events. "His production of the Anschütz Rifle is superior... A gun equally impressive as he is."

Here's a little more about ANSCHÜTZ, per their website:

Since its foundation, ANSCHÜTZ stands for innovation and perfection. This has not changed through the years. The name ANSCHÜTZ is inseparably connected with innumerable national and international shooting triumphs. Last but not least the pioneering efforts in biathlon shooting have made the name ANSCHÜTZ recognized all over the world. ANSCHÜTZ products enjoy an extraordinary and worldwide reputation because of their precision, workmanship and accuracy. This is what president Jochen Anschütz – continuing the tradition – puts as a benchmark for the future, to ensure that the long history of ANSCHÜTZ continues to give good memories far into the future.

4 Patuxent air pistol team members bound for Junior Olympics

The Patuxent High School Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps air pistol team was once considered small but mighty. Now it's just mighty: Four members are heading to the National Junior Olympics in Colorado Springs next month.

There was a time when only about four students showed up for the team's practices, said its coach, retired U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Chris Konicki.

"Lately, I've had about eight, which is a lot," said Konicki, who coaches the team voluntarily and is the parent of three Patuxent High graduates.

The air pistol team is an entity of Patuxent's NJROTC program, which, Konicki said, "is programmed to develop junior leaders in high school" and promotes higher education, community service, service to one's country and pride in the U.S. military. 

Results are in for the Men’s 4x7.5 km Relay in Biathlon: a gold medal for Norway, silver for Austria, and bronze for the Russian Federation. Team USA came in 13th place.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our Olympic biathlon coverage this winter. Just 882 days until the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London!

The final biathlon event at this year’s Olympic Games, the Men’s 4x7.5 km Relay, is scheduled to start at 11:30 PST at Whistler Olympic Park.

The American relay team consists of Lowell Bailey of Lake Placid, New York; Jay Hakkinen of Kasilof, Alaska; Tim Burke of Paul Smiths, New York; and Jeremy Teela of Anchorage, Alaska.

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The team from the Russian Federation won the gold medal in today’s Women’s 4x6km Biathlon Relay; France won the silver medal; and Germany won the bronze medal.

The American biathlon team came in 17th place.

The last Olympic biathlon event – the Men’s 4x7.5 km Relay – will take place on Friday.

The Women’s 4x6 km Relay is scheduled to start at 11:30 PST at Whistler Olympic Park.

On the American biathlon relay team are: Sara Studebaker of Boise, Idaho; Lanny Barnes of Durango, Colorado; Haley Johnson of Lake Placid, New York; and Laura Spector of Lenox, Massachusetts.

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Today's Women's competition was even closer than the Men's with Germany taking two out of the top three.

1. Magdalena Neuner - Germany; 35:19.6
2. Olga Zaitseva - Russia; 35:25.1
3. Simone Hauswald - Germany; 35:26.9

The Men’s 15k Mass Start was decided by just ten seconds - here are the results:

1. Evgeny Ustyugov - Russia; 35:35.7
2. Martin Fourcade - France; 35:46.2
3. Pavol Hurajt - Slovakia; 36:01.6

And that's not all for today as the Women’s 12.5k Mass Start begins in less than an hour. Stay tuned!

The Men’s 15 km Mass Start is scheduled for 11:00 PST at Whistler Olympic Park, followed by the Women’s 12.5 km Mass Start at 1:00 PST.

In the mass start event,

the 30 best-ranked competitors start together and must stop four times at the shooting range to take five shots at a target. If an athlete misses a shot, the athlete must ski a lap around a 150-metre penalty loop. If a competitor is lapped during the competition he or she must withdraw immediately.
(Vancouver2010.com)

The first one across the finish line wins.

Only two American biathletes have achieved the ranking necessary to compete in today’s Mass Start: Tim Burke of Paul Smiths, New York; and Jeremy Teela of Anchorage, Alaska.

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Emil Egle Svendsen won the gold medal for the Men’s 20km Individual; the silver medal goes to both Sergey Novikov of Belarus and Ole Einar Bjoerndalen of Norway, who both ended up with the same final time.

And here’s the results for the American competitors: Tim Burke came in 45th place, Lowell Bailey in 57th, Jay Hakkinen in 76th, and Wynn Roberts in 86th.

“Sinus problems this morning,” Jeremy Teela posted to Twitter, explaining why he wasn’t competing today. "Sorry folks I'm bummed too but cheer on Wynn Roberts in his first Olympic race.”

The next Olympic Biathlon event is Sunday’s Mass Start.

The gold medal goes to Tora Berger of Norway; silver to Elena Khrustaleva of Kazakhstan; and bronze to Darya Domracheva of Belarus.

From Team USA, Lanny Barnes came in 23rd place, Sara Studebaker came in 34th, Laura Spector came in 65th, and Haley Johnson came in 66th.

The Men’s Individual will be coming up in another hour and a quarter.

The Women’s 15 km Individual is scheduled to start at 10:20 PST at Whistler Olympic Park, with Men’s 20 km Individual at 1:20 PST.

Here's how the event works:

In the individual event, men race 20 kilometres and women race 15 kilometres. Competitors start one at a time, every 30 seconds, and ski a 4-kilometre (men) or 3-kilometre (women) loop five times. Between each loop, competitors stop four times at the shooting range to take five shots at a target. If an athlete misses a shot, one minute is added to his or her total time at the end of the race. The athlete with the lowest time, which consists of a combined ski time and shooting time penalty, is the winner.
(Vancouver2010.com)

More...

The gold medal goes to Bjorn Ferry of Sweden; silver to Christoph Sumann of Austria; and bronze to Vincent Jay of France.

From the American biathletes, Jeremy Teela came in 24th, Lowell Bailey came in 36th, Tim Burke came in 46th, and Jay Hakkinen came in 57th.

The next biathlon event will be the Women’s 15km Individual, scheduled for the day after tomorrow.

The results from the Women’s Pursuit competition are in. The gold medal went to Magdalena Neuner of Germany; silver to Anastazia Kuzmina of Slovakia; and bronze to Marie Laure Brunet of France. The only American competitor in this event, Sara Studebaker of Boise, Idaho, came in 46th place.

The Men’s Pursuit event starts in about 45 minutes!

The Women’s 10 km Pursuit is scheduled to start at 10:30 PST at Whistler Olympic Park, followed by the Men’s 12.5 km Pursuit at 12:45 PST.

What’s this “Pursuit” thing about? In the pursuit event, each biathlete’s start time is separated by their time difference from this weekend’s sprint events – and the winner is the first biathlete across the finish line. (And if they miss a shot at a target, that’s another 150 meter penalty lap.)

This is the third-ever time that the pursuit event has been done at the Olympics.

For more information about the American biathletes, visit the U.S. Biathlon Team. To watch video from the event online (or to check whether & when it’ll be televised), see NBCOlympics.com.

Here’s the results from this weekend’s Men's 10km Sprint!

The gold medal went to Vincent Jay of France; the silver medal to Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen; and Jakov Fak of Croatia won the bronze medal.

From Team USA, Jeremy Teela got ninth place. “Not podium but ok start to the games,” he posted to Twitter. Lowell Bailey was in 36th place, Tim Burke in 47th, and Jay Hakkinen in 54th.

The weather for the Men’s Sprint competition was tough. Burke found the snow frustrating; “When I came to the second shooting I had snow stuck in my sight. Basically there was snow everywhere.” And Hakkinen said that the conditions “were just horrible and unpredictable. It is a good thing that I shot clean and I also felt in great shape but with that snow coming down I basically could not ski as fast as I wanted. It is really frustrating but today it was all about luck. But I hold it together at the shooting range, so that gives me enough self-confidence for the upcoming tasks.” (Read more about this event at TeamUSA.com.) But since all four of them finished in the top 60, they'll be competing in this afternoon’s Pursuit event.