3 Sports You Missed, Vol. 4

AN AMERICAN HANDBALL GOLD MEDAL and the REAL most accurate shooters in college sports.

Hey all, this post got moved off its usual Monday spot because Bracket Week is busy for me. In fun news, I got to go on Pablo Torre’s show with Lucy Rohden to talk about brackets:

But I know a lot of you subscribe to Read Rodge for NOT college baskeball, so here are some sports you missed.

The biggest shot of March Madness

I’d never closely watched the target events at the Olympics like archery and shooting, and was repeatedly blown away this summer by how slim the margins were—gold medals decided by millimeters. But the NCAA rifle championships were somehow EVEN CLOSER.

In the individual air rifle championship, Ole Miss’ Audrey Gogniat and Kentucky’s Braden Peiser were perfectly tied after the final round—really remarkable, considering rifle scores are ridiculously precise. They’d taken 24 shots, each scored down to decimal points based on how many millimeters away from the center of the target they were, and ended up dead-even. Their tie forced a one-shot shootoff—I queued up this video to start right before the last shots.

Gogniat, a bronze medalist for Switzerland at the 2024 Olympics (that’s right, a Swiss at Ole Miss!) sealed the individual championship with a 10.6 in the shootoff while Peiser just missed the 10-ring. Gogniat had set an NCAA record with a perfect 600 out of 600 on 60 shots in the qualification rounds.

The team competition was also maximally close, although I can’t queue up a video because of the way the event works. West Virginia won the team event over Kentucky by a single point, 4,738 to 4,737. The Mountaineers have now won 20 rifle championships, the most of any school, which you’d expect because their mascot LITERALLY HAS A RIFLE. Although his doesn’t look as accurate as the guns they use in the competitions.

It was a tough break for Kentucky, who was hosting the championships, only to have a shooter lose the individual event in a shootoff and to lose the team event by a single point. Those scores come from a compilation of four shooters taking 120 shots each over two days, so the shooter who took the winning shot, WVU’s Natalie Perrin, said she didn’t actually know the score as she was shooting. It was the first time the event had been decided by a single point since 2005.

But perhaps the most interesting part of the rifle championships is that in the only truly co-ed NCAA event, female shooters dominated. (There are a couple of other sports, like skiing and fencing, with co-ed championships, but this is the only one where men and women directly compete against each other.)

Women won both individual championships, as Cecilia Ossi from Alaska-Fairbanks won the smallbore event. (The Nanooks, the northernmost NCAA school are a rifle powerhouse with 11 national titles. One of Ossi’s teammates finished second.) Women took five of the six medals, and 16 of 20 spots in the top 10.

Many Olympic shooting events used to be mixed-gender as well, but that famously stopped after female Chinese shooter Zhang Shan won gold over male competitors in 1992. Maybe the NCAA will start holding separate men’s and women’s championships so some of the boys can win something.

Team USA, Handball Champions*

I think the real purpose of this newsletter is to spread the gospel of American handball, so let’s do that a bit more. American men’s teams competed in two separate events for countries which are… uh… not that great at handball, the IHF Emerging Nations championship for senior teams and the IHF Inter-Continental Trophy for U-21 and U-19 teams. And Team USA medaled in ALL THREE categories, confirming American future dominance.

The Emerging Nations Championship in Bulgaria was the biggest event, and Team USA featured a handful of players who competed in January’s World Championship. They only lost one game, to eventual champions Great Britain in the semifinals, and won the third-place match over Nigeria. The Americans took bronze in the U-19 event at the Inter-Continental Trophy in Kosovo.

But Team USA WON the U-21 event, 33-32 over Uzbekistan, a game featuring a tense ending where an Uzbek player was called for a foul while attempting a potential game-tying shot with three seconds to go. The Uzbeks came out to yell at the refs afterwards while the Americans celebrated.

These aren’t exactly great results—Great Britain is one of those countries like America who has only participated in Olympic handball when hosting the Olympics; Uzbekistan has never made a major international event and Nigeria has only qualified for the World Championships once—BUT STILL.

MULTIPLE MEDALS FOR TEAM USA HANDBALL.

LOOK OUT WORLD, THESE EAGLES ARE LEARNING HOW TO SOAR

A Beach Bummer

Some tough news for American soccer fans: There’s a FIFA event called the Beach Soccer World Cup, but there’s no FIFA Women’s Beach Soccer World Cup. This explains why the Americans are merely 7-time Beach Soccer World Cup participants when we should be 7-time Women’s Beach Soccer World Cup champions. (It’s sorta like Barbie, where Barbie gets to achieve all sorts of great things, but Ken’s job is just…. beach.)

Last week was the chance for the USBNT (?) to become 8-time Beach Soccer World Cup participants. CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship, a qualifier for this summer’s Beach Soccer World Cup in the Seychelles. In 2023, Team USA won this event, but really, you just need to make the championship, since the top two teams would get World Cup bids. The semifinals are the de facto most important games of the tournament.

The semi between the USBNT and El Salvador was tied 1-1 after regulation, the lowest-scoring game in the tournament. (The big differences from regular soccer: The ball doesn’t roll, teams regularly score like seven goals in a match, and Tahiti is a powerhouse.) The game went to penalty kicks, and went deep into penalty kicks, but the Salvadoreans got a 7-6 win and the World Cup bid:

El Salvador went on to win the championship, while Team USA kept their heads up after World Cup elimination to beat the Bahamas for bronze. Normally when a team gets knocked out we do a bit about them going to Cancun but I guess when your job is beach you probably wanna go somewhere else. Maybe the mountains or something.

Some Sports You Won’t Miss

A lot of bangers approaching. Ordered by start date, not importance. Let me know if I missed anything!

Kabaddi World Cup: March 17-23rd, in England. It’s a tag-styled game popular in India. Apparently one of two “Kabaddi World Cups” happening this year. Team USA is sending a men’s team. Streaming free on Olympics.com 👍👍👍.

Freestyle Ski and Snowboarding World Championships: (That’s the cool winter Olympics stuff.) March 18-30th in Switzerland. Streaming on Peacock 🦚🦚🦚

NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving championships: March 19th-22nd, in Federal Way, Washington. Streaming on ESPN Plus 🐭🐭🐭

NCAA Fencing championship: March 20th-23rd, at Penn State. Streaming on ESPN Plus 🐭🐭🐭

NCAA Wrestling championship: March 20th-23rd, in Philadelphia. Streaming on ESPN Plus 🐭🐭🐭

Division III Final Fours: Semis on March 20th, champs on March 22nd. Men in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, women in Salem, Virginia. Streaming on ESPN Plus 🐭🐭🐭

World Athletics Indoor Championships: (That’s track and field.) March 21st-23rd, in China. Streaming on Peacock 🦚🦚🦚

Women’s Frozen Four: Semis March 21st, championship March 23rd, in Minneapolis. Streaming on ESPN Plus. 🐭🐭🐭