By Mike Jensen, The Philadelphia Inquirer

BEIJING — His wife, doing television color commentary of the Olympic men’s 50-meter prone rifle final back to the Czech Republic, jumped from her seat. After Matt Emmons, who grew up in New Jersey, fired his last shot, he looked to her right away. Katy Emmons abandoned her TV post and raced to congratulate her husband.

Emmons didn’t get the gold, but the silver had him smiling, telling his wife: “I did it!”

Friday’s silver medal will go down as one of his better career achievements, Emmons said, with the wind blowing all over, “switching back and forth” during the morning preliminaries, before the event moved indoors for the 10-shot final.

One week in, the Emmons family has more combined gold and silver medals than South America.

Katy won one of each in her shooting events. Her husband has a chance to win another medal Sunday. Between them, they have five lifetime Olympic medals, after Matt won a gold medal in Athens and Katy earned a bronze.

Emmons knew going into the final that Artur Ayvazian of Ukraine, participating in his third Olympics, would be tough to catch, with a big lead from the preliminaries, although Emmons scored better on seven out of 10 shots in the final to cut the lead brought in by Ayvazian in half.

Emmons won his Athens gold in this same 50-meter prone event but got far more attention for what happened a couple of days later in the three-position event, when he fired at the wrong target on his last shot, costing him a second gold.

The greatest miss of his life.

Until that day, Katy had never spoken to Matt, until afterward when she tapped him on the shoulder and said: “I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am for the crossfire. My dad and I feel that you are the real winner.”

That comment turned into a conversation at the next international rifle tournament, and then they began dating. They married last year.

In the last Olympics, Emmons competed anonymously. This time, cameras capture every moment.

“When the other one is competing, it is very difficult to keep your mind on your own game,” Matt Emmons said. “It’s been challenging to try to keep my head on straight for my events. I’ve been so happy for her. The story getting bigger back home, I think that’s fantastic.”