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Two American Olympic medalists and the U.S. national team coach will be on Lanai for the next four days to conduct shooting clinics at Lanai Pine Sporting Clays and explore the yet-to-open bird-hunting operation on the island.

Kim Rhode, Olympic champion in double trap for shotgun in 1996 and 2004 and the bronze medalist in 2000, will be joined on the trip by Lance Bade and coach Lloyd Woodhouse.

Bade is the 1996 Olympic bronze medalist in trap and a three-time Olympian who finished fifth in trap in Athens, Greece. He was an Olympic competitor in both trap and double trap in 1996 and 2000.

Rhode and Bade each won gold medals in their specialties at the 2003 Pan American Games.

Woodhouse has been a coach with the national shooting team since 1985 and was the U.S. Olympic Committee coach of the year in 1996 and 2003.

The trip for the three expert shooters will begin with a clinic for Lanai Pine instructors today from 9 to 11 a.m.

“We are very excited to have this kind of opportunity visit us on Lanai,’’ said Darrell Stokes, who is the Director of Land and Natural Resources for Castle and Cooke Co., which is sponsoring the trip after making contact with the American team a month ago. “From what they have told me, they are very excited as well. It will make our instructors and shooters on Lanai that much more world class. This is the kind of exposure that Lanai and the U.S. shooting team needs.’’

Stokes said that the Lanai shooters would guide the Olympians through the island’s new bird hunting operation in the Palawai Basin in the middle of the island. The Lanai Gamebird Preserve will open sometime in 2005 offering hunters the opportunity to bag pheasant, franklin, chukar and quail.

Stokes said that the preserve will also have a goal of being a new habitat for native birds like the Nene Goose. Native Hawaiian plants like the ohelu and popolo berries will be reintroduced to the island to help the native birds, which would not be hunted.

“We want the preserve to serve multipurposes,’’ Stokes said. “In addition to the native birds and opportunities for hunters, we also want to maintain open spaces. That is one of our biggest goals.’’

The Olympic shooters will be on the island until Tuesday and their schedule past the clinic set for today will be determined today. For more information on the schedule, call Stokes at 1-808-559-7041.