In the late 1920s thousands of Americans flocked to Nevada in hopes of finding jobs with the federal government constructing the Hoover Dam. More than 80 years later hundreds of competitive shooters will converge on the same area with hopes of finding a spot on ESPN in its new Targetsports Qualifier for the ESPN Great Outdoor Games.

Boulder City, Nev. will host the first televised qualifying event for the Great Outdoor Games on February 19-21, 2004. The event will feature Shotgun, Rifle and Archery events and will be held at the Desert Lake Country Club, which is considered one of the premier shooting facilities in the Southwest. The competition finals will be taped for broadcast on ESPN2 in May.

While the event will feature some of the big names in competitive shooting, it is designed to provide a chance for up and coming shooters to prove their talent to a national audience. The shotgun and rifle events qualifying rounds will take place on Friday, February 20th at the Desert Lake Country Club in Boulder City.

The shotgun and rifle qualifying rounds will take place on Friday, February 20th at 10:00 a.m. The Shotgun game features a five-target sequence of flying, bouncing and rising shots worth one point each. Each sequence is different and targets appear in three-second intervals. Success in this discipline is determined by the ability to hit the target quickly and reload before the next one appears. In qualifying, hopeful competitors may shoot the game as many times as desired in order to place among the top 16 finishers to advance to Saturday's finals.

The Rifle and Archery events

Rifle qualifying will run concurrently with Shotgun on Friday. The rifle competition involves head-to-head precision shooting, with a bank of ten targets and a "dueling tree" which allows shooters to erase their opponent's score.

The Archery qualifying will be held in conjunction with the National Field Archery Association's World Archery Festival at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, beginning Thursday, February 19. More than 1,600 archers will be competing for the World Archery Festival's championship, and Targetsports organizers expect more than 200 of those competitors to compete for the ESPN Targetsports finals.

In all qualifying rounds, competitors will be allowed to shoot the game as many times as desired to try to qualify for the televised finals. The top 16 qualifiers in all disciplines will advance. All qualifying events are open to the public, and a small per-round fee will be charged to cover target and administrative costs.

The Targetsports qualifying event is presented by the National Shooting Sports Foundation and Arrowsport, sport organizers of the Great Outdoor Games Target sports.

"The expanded coverage on ESPN2 demonstrates that people enjoy watching the unique archery competition developed for the Great Outdoor Games." said Jay Barrs, director of Arrowsport, a foundation of the Archery Trade Association.

The top five finishers in the Archery finals of Targetsports will secure a berth in the Great Outdoor Games to be held in Madison, Wisc., July 8-11, 2004.

"We are very excited about the opportunity this event offers for competitive shooters to show their skills on national television," said Scott Moore of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. "The Great Outdoor Games showcases some of the best competitive shooter's in the country and this event represents a chance for all those shooters who watch it on television to come out and see if they can go toe to toe with the best."

For more information on the Shotgun or Rifle competitions, contact Scott Moore at 203-426-1320.

For more information on the Archery competition, contact Jay Barrs at 801-619-3980.