Gary Anderson (sport shooter)
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| Full name | Gary Lee Anderson | |||||||||||||||
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October 8, 1939 (age 77) Holdrege, Nebraska, U.S. |
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Gary Lee Anderson (born October 8, 1939) is a former Nebraska state legislator and an American sport shooter, who was the only shooter to win two, consecutive Olympic gold medals in the 300 m Rifle event before it was discontinued. He also won seven World Championships.
Born in Holdrege, Nebraska, Anderson grew up on a farm near Axtell, Nebraska and graduated from Axtell High School in 1957. He attended the University of Nebraska for one year and then enlisted in the army. He served in the army until 1962, attaining the rank of Lieutenant. After resigning from the army, Anderson served with the Nebraska Army National Guard from 1963 to 1965 and the California National Guard from 1965 to 1968. During this time he received degrees from Hastings College in Nebraska and the San Francisco Theological Seminary in California.
Anderson was elected as a Republican to a four-year term in the Nebraska Legislature in 1972. During his term, Anderson felt that the Republican Party was too engaged in partisan politics, so he changed affiliation from the Republican to the Democratic Party. At the end of his term, Anderson did not seek re-election.
From a very young age, hunting and shooting fascinated Anderson. Without benefit of a coach or proper equipment (including ammunition), he taught himself how to shoot by dry-firing his rifle for hours at a time. Dreams of becoming an Olympic gold medalist in shooting led Anderson to the US Army. In 1959, after convincing skeptical US Army coaches that his implausibly high shooting scores were accurate, he was assigned to the elite U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit at Fort Benning, Georgia. His first international competition was the Pan American Games in 1959—only two years later, in 1961, he would win his first national championship.
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