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August 14, 2004 1:52 pm

Shooter cleans up, but not in medals chase

By ANN GREEN

Gannett News Service

MARKOPOULO, Greece -- It wasn't Jason Turner's day.

First the Rochester, N.Y., native failed to reach Saturday's final in the men's 10m air pistol competition at the Olympics.

Then as he was consoled by his parents and girlfriend, he upcapped a bottle of Coke only to have it spew onto the floor in the airy foyer of the Markopoulo Olympic Shooting Centre.

Proving he's no ugly American, Turner hurried outside to a nearby food vendor, collected some napkins and sopped up the mess.

The guy who began shooting competitively around age 12 at the Rochester Rifle Club had come a long way to the Olympics, and he didn't want to leave the wrong impression.

After finishing 36th among 47 competitors and with a score of 571 in the qualification round of air pistol, the 29-year-old Turner will get another shot at an Olympic medal on Tuesday in the free pistol competition.

``I've been shooting really well leading up to this competition. I lost confidence 10 to 15 shots into the match,'' he said.

As for his next event, Turner said, ``I won't do anything different. I trained well coming in. I just had a couple of blips in the road today. Eliminate those blips and I should be right there.''

Turner shot competitively at the Rochester Rifle Club from 1987 to 1996, concentrating on rifle for four years before switching to pistol.

His job basically is training for competitions, and he said he'll do it as long as possible.

He pointed out the age of Saturday's air pistol gold-medal winner, 43-year-old Yifu Wang of China.

For eight years, he has trained with past and future Olympians in Colorado Springs, Colo., and he qualified for the 2004 Olympic team by four-tenths of a point.

``That was definitely the high point of my career so far,'' he said.

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