By Francisco Vara-Orta, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 13, 2008

Surveillance video showed two men in a dark red Ford Expedition slowly driving past Rhode’s truck just before the shotgun was stolen. Moments later, the video showed two men reappearing and walking toward the shopping center.

Rhode told KTLA television that the thieves did not take anything else from her truck.

“They just went straight for the gun,” she said.

This morning, Rhode headed to Colorado Springs for a selection match for next year’s international competitions with a hastily put-together replacement gun. She said she is worried that she will not do well without her prize-winning, custom-made shotgun.

The shotgun “is part of me. I’ve traveled all over the world with it,” Rhode told KTLA this morning before boarding a flight at Los Angeles International Airport. “Hopefully it won’t affect my chances for the 2012 Olympics.”

Born in Whittier, Rhode began sport hunting while traveling on African safaris at the age of 12. At age 17, she won a gold medal in women’s double trap shooting at the 1996 games in Atlanta, making her the youngest female gold medalist in the history of Olympic shooting. She won gold in the event again in the 2004 games in Athens. In the Beijing last month, she earned silver in skeet shooting.

Rhode is offering a $5,000 reward for the return of her shotgun, which has stickers up and down the barrel marking each of her wins. Anyone with information on the stolen gun is asked to call the Riverside County Sheriff Department’s Lake Elsinore Station at (951) 245-3300.