that her team will challenge for the gold medal this summer, but thes

Shooting will have a different look at the Rio Olympics this summer.The International Shooting Sport Federation altered the finals format for Olympic events, starting all finalists at zero -- qualification scores had previously carried over -- with eliminations that culminate in a final duel for the gold medal.The ISSF made the changes in an effort to make the sport more appealing to younger generations and make it more fan friendly. The rules were put in place in 2013 and should make things extra interesting in Rio.A few more things to look for from the shooting events at the Rio Games:---THE RUNDOWN: Shooting at the Rio Olympics will include 15 events, nine mens and six womens. Competition is Aug. 6-14 at the Olympic Shooting Centre in Deodoro Olympic Park, which will also be the site of rugby, equestrian, BMX and mountain bike racing, pentathlon and kayaking.RHODES RIDE: Swimmer Michael Phelps is the most decorated American Olympian with 22 medals. Kim Rhode has a chance to do something not even Phelps has accomplished. Should the 36-year-old skeet shooter earn a medal in Rio, she will become the first U.S. Olympian to earn medals in six straight Olympics. A string of health issues put Rhode in danger of missing the Rio Games, but came through when she needed to, earning the team nomination at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Arkansas in May. Rhode is the first American woman in an individual sport to earn medals in five straight Olympics, winning her first three in double trap and her last two in skeet.FAMILY AFFAIR: Shooting at the Olympics is nothing new to Georgian Nino Salukvadze; the Rio Games will be her eighth. This one will be extra special with her 18-year-old son there with her. Tsotne Machavariani shot a personal best in 10-meter air pistol at the European championships in February to earn a surprise Olympic spot, creating what is believed to be the first mother-son duo to compete in the same Olympics. Salukvadze won gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics in 25-meter pistol and became a celebrity at the 2008 Beijing Games when she kissed a Russian shooter on the podium at a time when Georgia and Russia were at war.OLYMPIAN EFFORT: Jay Shi was 9 when he was working on a class project with scissors and stabbed himself in the eye. Doctors were able to restore his vision after the family moved from Beijing to the United States, but far from perfectly. Unable to see three dimensionally or judge distances well, Shi was forced to shoot cross-eyed -- gun in his right hand, left eye aiming down the site -- after taking up the sport about a decade ago. He failed to qualify for the Olympics in his home country in 2008 and the 2012 London Games as he tried to find a method that worked. Shi finally broke through this season, dominating the Olympic Trials in free pistol.CHASING CHINA: China will be the favorite in Rio after dominating the past two Games. The Chinese won five golds and seven overall medals at Beijing in 2008 and had the most medals at London with two golds and five overall. Guo Wenjun will be looking for a three-peat after becoming the first woman to repeat in womens 10-meter air pistol four years ago and Yi Siling will defend the 10-meter womens air rifle title.EYE ON EMMONS: Matt Emmons has seen his share of ups and downs during his career. He won gold in 50-meter prone rifle at the 2004 Athens Games using a borrowed rifle after his was apparently sabotaged in the locker room. He missed on a chance for double gold when he shot at the wrong target in three-position rifle. Emmons had another three-position mishap at the 2008 Beijing Games when, while comfortably leading, he accidentally hit the trigger and barely hit the ring on his final shot, dropping him to fourth. Emmons took silver in prone in Beijing and was the three-position bronze medalist at London in 2012.DIAMOND OUT: Australian Michael Diamond, one of the most decorated shooters in Olympic history, will not compete in Rio after being arrested in May on DUI and firearms charges. The two-time gold medalist in trap pleaded not guilty and his attorney asked the court to expedite his case so it could finish before the July 4 Olympic selection cutoff. Diamond met with the Australian Olympic Committees executive board in late June to plead his case, but Shooting Australia opted to not nominate him for Rio, a decision the AOC supported. Diamond has competed in six Olympics, winning gold in 1996 and 2000. Cheap Rangers Jerseys . Westbrook has missed 27 games since having a procedure on Dec. 27 to deal with swelling in his injured right knee — the third operation on the knee in nine months. Texas Rangers Store . - Chris Tierney snapped a tie with a power-play goal late in the third period as the London Knights rallied from a 3-0 deficit to beat the Erie Otters 5-3 in Ontario Hockey League action on Wednesday. https://www.cheaprangersbaseball.com/ . He just needed to be his best twisting, turning acrobatic self. "I didnt need to be anybody else, I just needed to be myself and be aggressive," said Burks, who scored a career-high 34 points to spark the Utah Jazz to a 118-103 victory over the Denver Nuggets on Monday night. Texas Rangers Gear . Its an influence in football and a big part of the game. Texas Rangers Shirts .Y. -- Paul Byron and Matt Stajan scored as the Calgary Flames started a five-game road trip with a 2-1 overtime win over the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday afternoon. Jessica Javelet never wanted to play rugby in the Olympics. And while she may be a crucial part of the USA seven-a-side team premiering in Rio this year, she always had a rather different Olympic dream.Up until a few years ago, she was expecting to represent her country on the global stage in field hockey.When I didnt make the 2008 roster for Beijing and then stopped playing, I thought that my Olympic dreams were over, she says. I thought Id missed out on that dream. To come back and try and have a second chance at it is something I never even thought would be possible. Im really excited to have this second opportunity.Perhaps its unsurprising that Javelet -- JJ to her friends -- never had rugby in her plans. The sport largely flies under the radar in the U.S., dwarfed by the more traditionally popular team sports. And across the world, rugby has typically been played by men, with womens teams coming as a relatively late addition. Seven-a-side rugby has been established for more than a century, but with smaller teams and shorter playing times, its often in the shadow of its 15-a-side sibling.When compared to Olympians who have trained for their sport since they were children, many of the players who will be wearing the USA shirt this summer came to rugby relatively late in life, typically after successful high school and college athletic careers in another discipline.Javelet, 31, only got into rugby after a former hockey teammate suggested it to her. She was looking for a new sporting challenge after putting her stick away and tried football for three years before being invited to a rugby camp. It was love at first hit.Megan Bonny, 26, and Kelly Griffin, 29, each played rugby for the first time in college. Both had competed in track, soccer and basketball as teenagers, and both wanted a new sport to try.I was really looking for something to do, says Bonny, and rugby was a fun new opportunity. It was at the time something to get me active again and be social, and it turned into something that was really good for me. It really pushed me to get motivated in school, be motivated in getting to the next level in rugby, and its been a really big thing in my life.But when Bonny and Griffin started playing, neither had expected that they would get the chance to go to the Olympic Games. Rugby sevens addition to the list of Olympic events was confirmed only in 2009.When rugby was announced as going to be included in the Olympics in 2009 it was like, Oh! Griffin says. It was like this might go somewhere, but at that point, a long shot. Fast forward a couple of years...Griffin is quick to stress that rugby is slowly gaining a higher profile in the U.S., with academies and camps springing up all over the country, and points out that this is reflected in the demographics of the squad going to the?Olympics.There are a couple of girls on our team now who are in high school or just graduated from high school -- they started playing in eighth grade.Theyre maybe five or six years younger than we are -- well, more for me, Griffin says. Were just a little bit older, but rugby is starting to take off in high school.Participation -- male and female -- in rugby in the U.S. increased by 81 percent from 2008 to 2013, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. According to USA Rugby, about one-third of the 1.13 million players in 2009 in the U.S. were women. And since then, the sport has grown massively at collegiate level, with more teams going full varsity. The players of Team USA think thats an incredibly positive development.We would like the American public -- boys and girls -- to start getting exposed to it earlier on so we can get top athletes to start playing rugby and continue playing, says Javelet, so thats something were really hoping for with the Olympics -- we get all the live coverage and we generate a lot of interest from younger players that want to start getting involved.The late blooming of rugby in the U.S. could serve as a disadvantage to tthe in the Olympics, but its not a roadblock.dddddddddddd The team finished fifth in the 2014-15 Womens World Sevens series, a competition between national teams in rounds across the globe. They had a good showing in Atlanta in April, winning five of six games in that round, but they ended up sixth in the rankings after being narrowly defeated by France 19-22?in the final round.It was Australia who picked up its first sevens title in that series -- the first team to manage to wrest the championship from New Zealand. Those two neighbor countries are looking like the teams to beat in Rio.The USA squad has also had an eventful build-up to their Rio preparations. The team has now had three head coaches in the span of a year: Jules McCoy left her position as coach in April after her second spell in the role. The new coach, Richie Walker, had previously been the assistant to Ric Suggitt, who had been replaced as coach by McCoy in September.Richie is an obvious choice to move the team towards the goals laid out for Rio, USA Rugby director of performance Alex Magleby said in a statement after Walkers appointment, adding: We need minimal disruptions moving forward.And Javelet, for one, announced her surprise departure from the international scene following the 2015 Canada Sevens tournament before returning six months later after McCoys appointment.Griffin, the squads captain, is keeping her team focused. Speaking over the phone, the players camaraderie is evident, with laughter in the background alongside jokes and teasing as they talk. The squad are based at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California, a year-round facility dedicated to maximizing teams performance across sporting disciplines.Realistically, were together almost every single day, Bonny says. Even on our off days, were coming in here for treatment.Says Griffin: Or were like, Hey, lets go get lunch! -- all the time. Or, You wanna go to a movie? We hang out every single day, lets hang out on our off days! A lot of us live together, were roommates. Were pretty close. It helps with the team chemistry. Everyone is really great.And being Americans, they take winning very seriously. In a brand-new event they have the chance to make their mark -- and bring home medals.The American rugby players have been inspired by their soccer-playing equivalents -- not just the current World Cup holders and Olympic gold medalists, but the legendary team of 1999, who won the World Cup on home turf after a dramatic penalty shoot-out, and seared the image of a celebrating Brandi Chastain on to the memories of a nation.I know the 99 World Cup was really influential for a lot of us, says Griffin. Thats when we were kids, in middle school. My parents took me to those games and that was really inspirational for a lot of us to see that, to be like, Look at them, I want to do that, we can do that, and that continues to be an inspiration to us going forward.Griffin is unafraid to say she is hoping that her team will challenge for the gold medal this summer, but these women also have a long-term view. They are pleased that there will be a U.S.-based professional league for their male counterparts -- and they know that there is a huge responsibility on their shoulders to gain media attention for the womens game.I think its really going to explode after the Olympics, Bonny said, and we can give that excitement to everybody else.We really want to perform well and make everyone whos worked so hard to get us where we are proud of us, make the American people proud of us, and represent the country well, Griffin said. The fact that we are Americans and we put so much emphasis on winning and being the best -- its really for us trying every day to get better. Were really pushing that limit.An earlier version of this story had a photo with a caption that incorrectly identified Kelly Griffin. ' ' '