After several cloudy days, long-awaited sunshine in the gulf
city of Kuwait finally brought the Chinese shooting squad a
long-awaited ticket to the men's double trap at the 2008 Olympic Games.
China's Pan Qiang (R) and
Wang Nan prepare to compete during the men's double trap at the
Asian Championships, December 9, 2007.
"Finally we got this quota place, which has been almost in our
reach for several times," said Sun Shengwei, a coach in the Chinese
national shooting team.
In the just-finished men's double trap competition, Pan Qiang
snatched the gold medal with his perfect performance that aroused
hurrahs from the audiences.
The 22-year-old Pan, who chalked up the same score as his
teammate Wang Zheng with 142 hits in the qualification round, was
one hit behind Alshamsy Saif Alshamsy from the United Arab
Emirates.
In the first pair of the final, Alshamsy missed one, backing to
the same starting line with the Chinese duo.
After Wang Zheng's lapse, another miss of the Arabic marksman in
the ninth pair gave the Pan a chance, but the boy lost soon in the
next pair.
In the 16th pair, Alshamsy missed one again. Pan led among the
six finalists.
Alshamsy's fourth miss occurred in the 23rd pair.
While Pan raised his gun for the 24th shot, he was cautioned by
the judge to mind the limiting line. Stepping back a bit, he fired,
but hit only one bird.
Fortunately, a good ending with both hits of the last pair
secured him the crown.
"After I finished the competition, I looked back, seeing my
coach smiling. I knew that I got another quota place for China in
this event," said the champion.
Pan noted that he has great pressure competing in the shooting
range, especially in the next-to-last pair, when his pace was
disrupted by the accident.
"When I aimed for the last pair, my hands were shaking," he
said. "I know that I am going to win, if I could down them
both."
Zhang Huiqun, a coach with the national team who had been pacing
anxiously outside the shooting range, dashed towards the boy after
the final, taking his gun and giving him a big hug.
The waiting Sun rose up from his chair, letting out a sigh and
patted Pan's sun-tanned face gently as praise. The first quota
place was acquired by Chinese shooter Hu Binyuan in the World Cup
Surl Fort.
"To win or to lose, this is our last chance (to get the other),"
Sun said.
In the men's 25-meter rapid fire pistol event, world champion
Zhang Penghui surged from the third place to nail down an
"unexpected" gold medal with 779.4 points.
The 30-year-old shooter didn't do well in the first part of
qualification round. Due to the influence of strong wind, he scored
only 286 points.
Although he managed to edge into the final, Zhang's
qualification score, 579, was two points behind Malaysian marksman
Hasli lzwan Amir Hasan and four points behind his teammate Liu
Zhongsheng.
In the four-set final, the champion of 2006 World Shooting
Championships achieved a 50.4 in the first set. Despite a 47.5
point in the second set, he impressed audiences with the following
two scores reported as 51.2 and 51.3, highest among all
finalists.
Out of his expectation, Amir Hasan failed to keep his momentum
in the final and collected only 195.6 points to bring back a
silver.
Liu was worse, chalking up a startling 189.8 to surrender his
medal to South Korean Cha Sangjun, who got the bronze with 773.0
points.
Sunday saw eight gold medals distributed at the 11th Asian
Shooting Championships, among which Chinese shooters seized seven.
Men's 50-meter rifle prone event shall take place on Monday, when
the Chinese corps is to vie for two quota places.
(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency December 10, 2007)
