PHOENIX — The sport of practical shooting is packed with high-speed excitement and adrenaline pumping action.
12News caught up with a few Arizona members of Team USA, who recently brought home gold from the world championship in Finland.
They’re skilled, they’re precise and they move quick with high-performance rifles in hand.
“Oh yeah, it does the job,” said Justine Williams, who started in competitive shooting sports 10 years ago. “It definitely does the job.”
“It’s really the camaraderie between everyone who shoots,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re competing against each other or you’re just shooting with each other... it’s really fun.”
In the sport of practical shooting, the participants move toward multiple targets on the course.
“You compete with different calibers, different firearms, underneath time and you try to get the best points possible,” said Williams. “Whoever does that the best, wins the match.”
Williams is one of the members of Team USA who recently won gold at the 2024 IPSC Rifle World Shoot in Finland. It’s the world championship for practical shooting.
“We’ve won it the last three world shoots and I’m really happy to be a part of the team that was able to defend that title,” she said.
AJ Anthony started shooting five years ago.
“It went spectacularly for the U.S.,” he said. “This was the third one that they’ve hosted, and historically, Finland has been one of the top participators, but the U.S. had a really strong showing and we ended up taking first in most of the major categories.”
The practical shooting competition wasn't part of the Olympics, but it is an international tournament, with participants from across the globe.
Winning gold meant a lot to team captain Leighton Oosthuise, who has competed in a number of World Championships.
Of the 70 competitors that make up Team USA, 14 are from Arizona.
"We represented well... this was a big team for us and they did awesome,” he said. “We walked away with almost all the medals.”
In a sport like this, there are always challenges along the way.
“We’re trying to shave of tenths of a second every time we’re aiming at a target,” said Anthony.
And safety is a critical component of the sport.
“You’re always facing downrange,” said Oosthuise. "You’re engaging targets in a safe and respectful manner… everyone that goes to the match walks away safely and comes home safely.”
Their dream would be for their sport to one day become an Olympic sport.
“Hopefully the youngsters sitting behind me, Justine and her crowd will be able to take advantage of that, at some stage down the road,” he said.
But until then, they plan to keep working hard and competing on the international level.
“We can really be proud of what we did and how we performed,” said Oosthuise.
“So much pride,” said Williams. “We showed up and we went to work, and we did our job.”
“Go USA!” said Anthony.
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