China had won four gold medals in Athens, mainly in the 10-metre air events, and would be keen to build on that with its strong 26-member team, writes Kamesh Srinivasan.
The Chinese would love to provide a great start to their Olympic quest for gold medals by hitting the bull’s eye in shooting.
Du Li will face the challenge of defending her air rifle gold on the morning of August 9, when the whole of China eyes the first medal at stake on the opening day. That will be a tough start for the Chinese as German Sonja Pfeilschifter has been in to p form, winning four gold medals, two each in air rifle and sport rifle 3-position events in the last two World Cups in Milan and Munich.
Pfeilschifter, a four-time World Champion, four-time World Cup finals gold medallist and 18-time World Cup winner, won with big margins to be an overwhelming world No. 1. However, it could be a different game at home when the Chinese tune themselves to be at their best, in their attempt to beat the world. Quite surprisingly, Pfeilschifter will be looking for that elusive Olympic medal!
China had won four gold medals in Athens, mainly in the 10-metre air events, and would be keen to build on that with its strong 26-member team. The seasoned pistol shooter Wang Yifu who had won six Olympic medals, three of them gold in air pistol in five editions, has become one of the coaches now.
Yifu had beaten world champion Mikhail Nestruyev of Russia by 0.2 points on the last shot to bag the air pistol gold in Athens. The Russian, of course, had the distinction of bagging the free pistol gold then.
Hungarian coach Laszlo Szucsak, training the Indian rifle shooters, pointed out that Wang Yifu has been careful to take the focus away from his shooters, stressing the excellent form of others in the run-up to the Games.
Zhu Qinan and Jia Zhanbo will be the other Chinese looking to defend their air rifle and 3-position gold medals and both have done well to be ranked No. 1 in the world.
World and Olympic record holder, the 46-year-old Ralf Schumann of Germany, will be gunning for his fourth gold medal in rapid fire pistol. He had won the title in Barcelona, Atlanta and Athens. The German was the favourite in Sydney, too, but had lost two precious points following an unsuccessful protest and had finished fifth.
Similarly, Michael Diamond of Australia will be gunning for his third gold in trap after the ones in Atlanta and Sydney.
Circumstances had forced him to miss the final in the last edition, but Diamond has been in brilliant form, winning back to back gold medals recently in World Cups, with a world record to boot.
In double trap, Ahmed Almaktoum, the only Olympic medal winner for UAE, will be back to defend his title.
He will have the tough task of matching the men in form such as the Sydney gold medallist Richard Faulds of Britain and Hakan Dahlby of Sweden.
The lack of good form of Athens silver medallist Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and the non-qualification of double world record holder Ronjan Sodhi may be a big relief for the rest.
The Chinese could assert themselves in women’s air pistol and skeet, as Guo Wenjun and Wei Ning have pushed themselves to be No. 1 in the world rankings. Wei Ning had won the silver in the last edition behind Diana Igaly of Hungary.
Jasna Sekaric of Serbia who had lost the air pistol gold to Olena Kostevych of Ukraine in the tie-shoot after being locked at 483.3 after 10 shots in the final in Athens, will be looking to recapture the gold she had won in 1988, albeit in the sports pistol event in which she is currently ranked second behind Lalita Yauhleuskaya of Australia.
Though the Indians would be looking to win a medal or two, the shooting ranges will basically provide a nice platform for China, Russia, US and Germany to fight on equal terms.
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