10m Men's Air Rifle

Sparks

From targetshootingireland.org:

An event I was personally looking forward to, and which didn't dissappoint, saw China's Zhu Qinan take the Gold medal and his fellow countryman Li Jie take the Silver, leaving the rest of the pack almost four points behind them, with Qinan setting a new Olympic Qualification score and a new Olympic Finals score record in the process.

There were four competitors we were watching for this event; Min Ho Cheon, the 17-year-old Korean who came out of nowhere for the Athens World Cup and took the gold medal, and then did the same thing for the Milan World Cup; Jozef Gonci, who in both competitions placed eighth at the start of the finals and clawed his way up to second place, only narrowly missing taking the Gold away from Cheon; and Jason Parker and Matthew Emmons from the US.

Parker has been dominating both smallbore and air rifle events for the last few years now, especially in the Americas, and as one of the best shooters in the US Army Marksmanship Unit was a serious contender for the Gold this time round. Matthew Emmons, however, a college student at the University of Fairbanks in Alaska, had blown away the competition at the US trials, becoming the first American to qualify in every rifle discipline (He's shooting in the 50m Prone and 50m 3P events later this week). The competition between Parker and Emmons
was always going to be good given their skill, but the US Army shooter vs. US Collegiate shooter angle just gave it that extra little twist.

Parker and Emmons both put in a 594, putting them into joint eighth place. On countback Emmons lost out with his 99 to Parker's 100 for the sixth string. However, Parker then put in an unimpressive performance (for
him), never advancing from eighth place.

Min Ho Cheon and Jozef Gonci both made the finals on 595 and 596 respectively - what satisfaction Jozef derived from finally getting to stand ahead of Cheon, after having Cheon lead him for the past two World Cups, makes for amusing speculation! However, it was 20-year-old shooter, Zhu Qinan, who took the lead in the qualifications with an impressive 599, an excellent display of stress management!

The remainder of the finalists included some well-known names and some not-so-well-known - Germany's Maik Eckhardt, Korea's Je Sung Tae and India's Abhinav Bindra.

The finals themselves were never in much doubt, given the lead of the two Chinese shooters, though you have to feel horrendous for Bindra, who suffered the ignominity of putting in an eight during an Olympic final and losing third place for it.


Zhu Qinan


Li Jie

Gonci and Cheon shot neck-and-neck for the first eight places, neither dropping more than a fifth of a point to the other, and neither willing to be the first to blink. And then disaster on the ninth shot by Gonci when he fell behind Cheon by half a point, losing his Bronze medal position. But then Gonci showed why he's one of the best shooters in the world today by banishing the thought from his mind and shooting a 10.4 on his last shot, coming in a full point ahead of Cheon's 9.4 and retaking the medal place with his final pellet of the day. Gonci was later quoted as saying "The pressure is big in the final. I didn' know that I could achieve. I love my rifle and this shot was the best of my life. I couldn't believe it until the audience applauded and then I understood that it was for me."


Jozef Gonci

The full scores of the competition are here.