We talked with the Olympic legend about the shooting sports, family, representing the U.S., and living and training in an anti-gun state.
Kim Rhode became the youngest woman in Olympic history to win a shooting sport Gold Medal when she clinched first place in Double Trap at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia just days after her seventeenth birthday. While that is beyond impressive, it wasn’t her first win at the global level.
She got her start in competitive shooting at only 10 years of age, shooting American Skeet. At 13 she won a World Championship and became the captain of the All-American Team shortly thereafter.
Kim shooting during her first trip to the Olympic Shooting Center located in the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Photo courtesy of Winchester
The championships and accolades have been accumulating at a precipitous pace since then. She has medaled in an unprecedented six consecutive Olympic games since her debut in 1996, and has been awarded the female athlete of the year as many times.
In the 2012 London Summer Olympics, she took Gold in skeet while tying the world record, breaking 99 out of 100 clays. And, though she didn’t know it at the time, she was carrying her son. She’s also the first Olympian to win a medal on five different continents.
Recently, I had the privilege of speaking with Kim for a lengthy interview. When you talk to Kim, you get the feeling that she is genuine. “It’s a way of life for me, it truly is,” she says. And it would have to be a way of life to put in the hours needed to continue to win against the best shots in the world year after year.
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