The big guns of China fell silent on Tuesday as they ended the
Asian Game shooting events with only onegold.
China only claimed the team's title of men's 25m standard pistol
event, but the remaining three golds were split by Qatar and
Thailand.
It
was a day of glory for Qatari clay-pigeon shooters when theyclaimed
both the team's and individual golds of men's skeet.
Masoud Hamad, Nasser Al-attiya and Ahmed Al-Kuwari totaled 360 hits
to beat Kazakhstan's 355 hits and claimed the team's title,
breaking the Asian record by one hit. The former record was set
byKuwait at the world championships in 1999.
The Chinese team of Jin Di, Chen Dong and Zhang Kaiyan scored 352
hits to win the bronze medal.
In
the following finals, Masoud Hamad of Qatar kept a stable
performance to retain the gold, while Chinese Jin Di, who scored
asame 122 hits with Masoud, missed three targets and placed
second.Alexei Ponomarev from Kazakhstan finished a perfect 25 hits,
but only won the bronze medal with a total of 143 hits.
In
the men's 25 meter standard pistol, Chinese trio Liu Guohui,Liu
Yadong and Jin Yongde scored 1,724 points in the team's event to
grab the only gold for China. South Korea placed second with
3points less, both of them broke the Asian record of 1,719 set by
China in the Beijing Asian Games in 1990. DPR Korea won the
bronzewith 1,712 points.
The individual title went to Opas Ruengpanyawut of Thailand, who
scored 579 points, two points higher than Liu Guohui to clinchthe
first gold medal for his country in the Asiad shooting.
"China is not very strong at the men's standard pistol and skeet
events, we are glad that we clinched the standard pistol title
since it is an unexpected gold," Chinese head coach Xu Haifeng
said.
China totaled 27 golds, 16 silvers and 7 bronze medals during the
seven-day tournament.
"Our shooters raised their aims in the Asiad," said Xu. "We
expected to win 18 golds before the games but made it 27.
"What made me excited was that our shooters broke three world
records. They did an Olympic-level performance."
(Xinhua News
Agency October 8, 2002)