Giving It Her Best Shot : After Missing Her Mark in Barcelona in ‘92, Connie Petracek Has Her Gun Sighted On an Olympic Medal in Atlanta ’96

Connie Petracek became an Olympic shooter in her sleep.

It was 1983, Petracek was on a plane with her husband, Michael. It was the first vacation the couple had taken without their three daughters, and Mom had been up late, analyzing every problem that could possibly occur in their absence, leaving instructions on the refrigerator and the correct numbers by the phone.

By the time Petracek, of Nashville, Tenn., found her seat on the plane she was exhausted. She quickly grabbed a pillow and was asleep the minute the aircraft got off the ground.

While she slept, her husband spoke with the man who happened to be seated next to him, Michael Keys. Keys, the doctor for the U.S. shooting team, sold Michael Petracek on the sport and together they mapped out how Connie would become an Olympic shooter.

Not that Connie minded.

“I was at the point in my life when I need some stimulation,” she said. “My husband had taught me how to shoot a .45 automatic when we were dating, but since we started a family I hadn’t picked up a pistol.”

Petracek decided to give it a shot, literally. She entered a preliminary match for the 1984 Olympic trials and, surprisingly, qualified. Twelve years later, at 48, she is one of the finest female pistol shooters in America and the favorite in both air and sport pistol at the U.S. Shooting National Championships, beginning today at the Prado-Tiro shooting ranges in Chino.

“I was so scared and excited after I qualified for the Olympic trials that I called the coach of the pistol team at the time, Dan Iuga, and asked him to teach me,” Petracek said. “He agreed, but then it took me two years before I was able to shoot well. I learned how much work it takes to be good.”

In the year before the 1992 Games in Barcelona, Petracek was as focused on her sport as she had ever been. In the fall she took a Spanish class, months before she had even qualified for the Olympic team. Then, in the trials at Chino the next May, she qualified for both pistol events, the only U.S. woman to do so.

She left for Spain, saying she was gunning for a top-10 finish. She told herself she could win a medal.

Petracek did neither, finishing a disappointing 24th in air pistol and 29th in sport pistol.

“I learned from that experience,” she said. “I learned not to get caught up in all the hype which surrounds the Olympics. I think I felt obligated to do all the interviews, to include my community in the event. But it took away from my concentration and my focus.”

After the Olympics, Petracek decided she needed some time away from the sport. Besides her disappointing performance at the Games, there had been a controversy following her since before the Olympics.

Petracek and teammate Libby Callahan, of Upper Marlboro, Md., had cried foul to U.S. shooting team officials in the spring of 1992 after the positive drug test of another shooter was allegedly misplaced.

The test involved the United States’ most veteran shooter, Ruby Fox, a silver medalist in 1984. She had tested positive for a banned anabolic steroid after placing sixth in a World Cup event in April 1992. But the positive result was not sent to UIT, the international shooting union, and Fox continued to shoot, qualifying in both events at the trials.

Petracek and Callahan began writing letters to U.S. shooting team officials and to UIT, and in June Fox was banned from shooting events and removed from the Olympic team.

It was later determined that Fox had been given erroneous information by the U.S. Olympic Committee’s drug hot line. She had been told that Estratest, used to control estrogen levels, was not on the list of banned substances. Fox, of Parker, Ariz., had undergone a hysterectomy in 1975 and her body no longer produces estrogen. She was later allowed to travel to Barcelona as an athlete representative, part of an agreement with the U.S. Olympic Committee.

The Fox controversy caused tension on the U.S. team. There were those who believed Petracek and Callahan had been correct in calling attention to the positive test, others who felt Fox had been cheated and that Petracek and Callahan, who had replaced Fox on the Olympic team, were partially to blame.

Petracek would not discuss her involvement in the Fox case, but Callahan said it might have been one of the reasons Petracek chose to leave the sport.

“Sometimes things bother people but they won’t admit it,” Callahan said.

Petracek did not shoot again until February 1994. She has been climbing back to the top of her sport since then, and in March finished first in both sport and air pistol at the Pan American Games in Buenos Aires.

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Connie Petracek is staring at her target, her body steady, her mind clear. Shots can be heard from the other ranges, but Petracek blocks them out. She doesn’t even notice her daughter, Kara, who watches from behind.

“That is what I love about the sport,” she says later. “The total control you have to have over your mind. I love the precision.”

It is a love that is shared by two of her three daughters. Kara, 17, competes against her mother in the pistol events. Kristen, 21, began shooting pistol but in 1992 switched to moving target, a rifle event that is not yet an Olympic sport. The youngest Petracek daughter, Katherine, 15, is not yet sold on the sport.

“I have never pushed it on them,” Connie said. “In fact, I used reverse psychology. I told them that the easiest thing would be for me to go on the road by myself, that trips would be a lot more pleasant if I didn’t have to worry about them.”

During the time she spent away, Petracek remembered what it was about the sport that she had found so appealing. She also remembered the one goal she had set for herself.

“I am a very competitive person,” she said. “I love to win. I don’t care how other people think I should do. I just like to know I did the best I can do. And I feel I can win an Olympic medal. That is my want, that is my goal.”