Army Sgt. Sagen Maddalena looks through her sight during the women's 10-meter air rifle final at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Monday, July 29, 2024, at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre in Chateauroux, France. (Joshua Schave/USA Shooting)

CHATEAUROUX, France — Army Sgt. Sagen Maddalena needed time to process the women’s 10-meter air rifle final Monday morning at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre.

Who could blame her? The 30-year-old shooter came agonizingly close to bringing home a piece of Olympic hardware – just missing the podium by finishing fourth.

Maddalena was the last one eliminated prior to the medal-winning rounds, falling just 1.4 points short of Switzerland’s Audrey Gogniat — the eventual bronze medalist.

It’s an event where competitors are so accurate that even something that could be considered a bull’s-eye can come up just a bit short. A shot that hits dead center in the target would score a 10.9, followed incrementally by others farther away. 

South Korea’s Hyo-jin Ban would eventually defeat China’s Yuting Huang 251.8 (10.4 final shot) to 251.8 (10.3) to win the gold. Both equaled the Olympic record set by Chinese shooter Qian Yang at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

“It was a lot of work to get here and just being dropped out (at the end) …” Maddalena said after the event. “(I was) pretty nervous going into it, but then got my stuff together, did what I had to do to get my nerves down. I actually felt fairly calm once I stepped up on the line because I knew my job.”

Army Sgt. Sagen Maddalena adjusts her weapon during the women's 10-meter air rifle final of the 2024 Paris Olympics on Monday, July 29, 2024, at Chateauroux Shooting Centre in Chateauroux, France. (Joshua Schave/USA Shooting)

Army Sgt. Sagen Maddalena looks through her sight during the women's 10-meter air rifle final at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Monday, July 29, 2024, at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre in Chateauroux, France. (Joshua Schave/USA Shooting)

The finals’ format added to the stress level.

Following two sets of five shots, each athlete had two more attempts. Then the one with the lowest points was eliminated.

That process was repeated over and over until one shooter was left standing.

Maddalena entered the elimination stage in fourth, but after her 12th shot, she was sitting in seventh place and on the chopping block.

The Groveland, Calif., native then locked in. A 10.4 score on her next shot gave her some breathing space, and then she popped off a 10.8 on her 14th try to leapfrog into fourth. She overtook hometown favorite Oceanne Muller of France and Kazakhstan’s Alexandra Le, who won a bronze medal Saturday in the team event.

Those two finished fifth and sixth, respectively.

Maddalena added a second consecutive 10.8 to put herself in medal contention. She had a chance heading into her final shot, trailing Gogniat by half a point. But a tally of 9.8 saw her tournament come to an end.

Army Sgt. Sagen Maddalena steps away from the range after being eliminated Monday, July 29, 2024, in the women's 10-meter air rifle competition at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre in Chateauroux, France. Maddalena finished fourth with 207.7 points. (Matt Wagner/Stars and Stripes)

Army Sgt. Sagen Maddalena shakes the hand of a South Korean coach following the conclusion of the women's 10-meter air rifle event on Monday, July 29, 2024, at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre in Chateauroux, France. (Matt Wagner/Stars and Stripes)

The atmosphere was different than in qualifying.

Once quiet outside of the pops of air rifles, cheering from the crowd not only was allowed in the elimination round but encouraged. Maddalena received her share of noise following her two-shot stretch of 10.8.

“The crowd and spectators were great,” Maddalena said. “I could definitely feel the excitement in the air.”

Maddalena still has one Olympic event left: the women’s 50-meter three-position rifle. That begins Thursday with the qualification round at noon Central European Time.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks alumna placed fifth in the specialty during the 2020 Tokyo Games.

Maddalena said she hopes her fourth-place performance at 10 meters can be a springboard to bigger things.

“Yeah, smallbore should be pretty good,” Maddalena said. “I can’t speculate on it, but I’m prepped.”

In another shooting event Monday, Army Staff Sgt. Will Hinton began the men’s trap qualification rounds. After three sets, the 28-year-old member of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit sits 29th out of 30 competitors.

Hinton will complete two rounds Tuesday morning. The top six in the event advance to the finals later that day.