Shooting Star Is Celebrity Overseas, but Fails to Trigger Respect in U.S.

Erich Buljung, who won a silver medal in air-pistol shooting at the 1988 Olympics Games, is a celebrity in Europe. And Buljung has the fan mail to prove it.

As Buljung spoke to a reporter, he opened a letter from an East German teen-ager who wanted his autograph. Enclosed were three cards for Buljung to sign and return.

Although Buljung is famous abroad, he’s virtually unknown in America, where shooting isn’t a major sport.

The U.S. shooting championships, which are being held at Prado Regional Park in Chino this weekend, aren’t expected to draw a big crowd.

But it’s different in Europe.

“When I competed in a match in Yugoslavia last month, the finals were carried on national TV and there were 3,000 fans in the stands,” Buljung said. “Here we are lucky to get a two-inch story in the paper.”

A career soldier, Buljung shoots for a living.

Buljung, 45, who has been in the Army for 25 years, is a master sergeant stationed at Ft. Benning, Ga., where he’s a shooting instructor.

During a tour of duty in Vietnam, where he was in the Military Police, Buljung discovered that he had an eye for pistol shooting.

“It (shooting) went hand in hand with the job I had in the Army,” Buljung said. “When I was in the Military Police we carried a side-arm. We used to have competitions in the military police corps.”

Since joining the Army shooting team in 1977, Buljung has competed in three Pan American Games, two world championships and two Olympics.

He finished ninth in free-pistol shooting at the 1984 Olympics. But his biggest moment came during the Seoul Games, where he won America’s only medal in the shooting competition.

At the 1988 Olympics, Buljung set a world and U.S. record by scoring 590 of a possible 600 points in the air pistol, a 2 1/2-hour event in which shooters take 60 shots, one at a time, at a 50-meter target.

Although Buljung and Taniov Kiriakov of Bulgaria tied for first place, Buljung lost the tiebreaker by a tenth of a point. He needed a 9.2 for the gold and he shot a 9.1.

Was he disappointed?

“Not really,” Buljung said. “I lost it because of my performance. Everyone else was a lot happier than I was because we won a medal and we hadn’t been expected to do well. But not performing well detracted from the situation.”

Buljung’s unemotional reaction to losing the gold medal was typical, friends say.

“From a psychological point of view, Erich is a very cool guy,” said Dan Iuga, U.S. Olympic shooting coach. “He controls his behavior. You don’t know if he’s happy or upset.

“It’s important to control your emotions in shooting because it helps your concentration.”