As curtains were down for the 11th Asian Shooting Championships
and the Chinese shooting team busy packing for their home-bound
journey, two more gold medals obtained on Wednesday made their
luggage heavier.
Despite his fatigue after winning men's 50-meter rifle prone
event on Monday, 33-year-old Jia Zhanbo dominated the shooting
range again by snatching the gold of the men's 50-meter rifle three
positions with 1,266.3 points.
The Olympic champion who just bestowed his team an Olympic quota
place in 50-meter rifle prone headed the finalists list by
achieving 1,169 points in the qualification round, three points
ahead of the second placer South Korean Park Bong Duk, and four
points above his teammate Zhang Lei and Indian shooter Sanjeev
Rajput.
In the 10-shot final, he didn't do well in the first three shot
by scoring two 8.9 points and a 10.0, but managed to adjust his
state to sent the following six bullets within the ten-point
circle.
Although in the last shot, Jia just achieved a startling 7.4
points, but all is well that ends well and he eventually outshot
the runner-up with 2.5 points.
Zhang Lei finished as the third with 1,263.2 points.
Their performances lifted the Chinese team to the championship
of the team event and marked a good ending for the fruitful
red-clad squad, whose number of gold medals has reached 39.
"The final started before the gauge of my rifle was properly
tuned," Jia said in explaining his bad start, "but in the last
shot, I made a mistake by failing to shoot out the bullet, which
disrupted the rhythm of my performance."
"I should have scored at least one point higher," said the
regretful champion.
"His performance in the qualification is good. Although the last
shot was less than satisfactory, Jia has drawn a good conclusion
for our team in the championships," noted Wang Yifu, head coach of
the Chinese national shooting team.
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In men's skeet event, although Chinese shooter Qu Ridong failed to
claim the champion title, his prowess in the final was also
impressive.
The 39-year-old athlete who shot down the Olympic ticket of the
event at the Qingyuan World Shotgun Championships collected the
same score of 117 with Asian Games runner-up Saeed Almaktoum from
the United Arab Emirates in the qualification round.
The pair stunned audiences by hitting all the targets to finish
as 142 hits despite the wind, but Qu managed to beat his
counterpart in the shoot-off to gain the silver. Almaktoum settled
for a bronze.
"I shouldn't have missed twice in the 6th firing point, the
central one, in the qualification round," said Qu. "Anyway, I am
quite satisfied with my performance today, which shows my real
capability."
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"The shoot-off is like a penalty, and Qu proved himself a good
shooter," Almaktoum said.
The gold medal was nipped by Abdullah Alrashidi, shooter from
the host country of Kuwait, with 143 hits.
(Xinhua News Agency December 13, 2007)