BEIJING 2008: Shooting

368 "athletes" will descend on Beijing to compete in 15 shooting events in four disciplines. Some will be packin' pistols, some rifles, and others will be gunnin' with a good old fashioned shotty. It's testament to every man's deep down desire to be old-school Clint Eastwood that it's deemed necessary to have so many shooters at the Olympic Games. Some may say that shooting isn't a sport because fat/unfit people can do it. But Mark Riddell can get through 25 minutes of every NRL match he plays. WHAB cult hero Darren "Boof" Lehmann was fat and smoked like a chimney. John Daly is fat and can play golf, usually while he's blind drunk. So sport it is!

Australia are well represented at Beijing. It's a sport that suits those of us who were never going to be footy stars. So fitness isn't a factor, but obviously there is plenty of skill and accuracy involved. I'm sure that a few of our team have changed their surnames to better suit their shooting personas. Looking through the team list there's Mark, Quick and Potent to name a few. The boys probably could have taken it another level, maybe Russell CapInYoAss or Warren YippyKiyaMotherfucker might have intimidated opponents a bit more. Anyway, our best male medal hope looks to be 96'/2000 gold medallist Michael Diamond who has some handy lead-up form.

Aussie shooting hope Michael Diamond.

In the women's, Lalita Yauhleuskaya looks our strongest chance, literally:

China are expected to dominate the shooting however, just like they will dominate most other sports at these games with their combination of weight in numbers, bribing of officials, crazy crowds, competitors from other countries being arrested for allegedly being protesters, and 'roids. So get behind our gun-totin' Aussies because they'll need all the help they can get up against a Chinese team packin' all that!