• xantoxis@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Well, sure, but you don’t send a random selection of citizens to the Olympics. You send the best.

    The nation with the most gun owners per capita and a huge population should have many pinnacle-tier shooters, even if it also has many bad ones. So the question is, why aren’t they at the Olympics?

    • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Honestly? Opportunity. It starts with money, or willingness for you or your parents to give up everything that isn’t training.

      I was in the service with some incredible shots. I’ve been on the range with some pretty incredible shots. Most of them would never have the opportunity for any number of reasons.

      Some of that comes down to simply money. Flavor Flav is sponsoring our women’s water polo team because some of them were working three jobs while training to stay afloat. Not everyone wants to or even can do that.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      So the question is, why aren’t they at the Olympics?

      I think I did answer this, just because there’s a larger pool doesn’t make the pool deeper necessarily.

      (But also, there is military poaching)

    • wanderingmagus@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      A lot of the people who would be excellent at shooting have no interest in specifically Olympic shooting or training for the type of shooting required, unfortunately. That, and the military has probably poached the best of the best, and don’t want to show what “best of the best” shooting looks like for strategic reasons.

      (side note, happy cake day!)