BEIJING – Eric Ang started on the wrong foot and just couldn’t give it his best opening shot.
Ang reeled from poor rhythm in his first 25 shots and limped home with a score of 65, six birds short of the score he needed to stay competitive for a berth in the six man finals of the trap event of the shooting competitions at the Beijing Shooting Range CTF yesterday.
“He couldn’t get his rhythm in the first round,” said shooting president Art Macapagal of Ang, who shot 19 of a maximum score of 25 fired by three of the 35-man field.
He got into his groove in the second round, where he shot 24 birds but failed anew in the third with a 22. He finished joint 29th.
“The second round could have been perfect if he had not miscalculated one shot,” said Macapagal.
With a 65, Ang, the 2003 Southeast Asian Games gold medalist and seventh in the tough World Cup in 2007, trails 28 others who have gunned down 66 birds or better in the first three rounds of competition.
The last two rounds will be fired today, with the top six advancing to the finals where the scores in the final 25 birds and results of the qualifying rounds will be added to determine the medalists.
As expected the world’s best shooters kept their positions in the top 10, with David Kostelecky of the Czech Republic, the 2006 World Cup Finals champion, and Italian Giiovanni Pellielo, the world record holder with a perfect 125, sharing the top positions with 73.
Occupying the second position with 72 points were Italian Erminio Frasca, 2004 Olympic champion Alexey Alipov, Slovakian Erik Varga, 1996 Olympic gold medalist Michael Diamond of Australia and Josip Glasnovic of Croatia.
Ang had competed against four of the top seven in the 2007 World Cup where he barely missed the finals by one point.
With perfect scores of 25-25 in today’s last two qualification rounds, Ang will end up with 115 birds, six short of his goal of 121, his best personal record, to reach the final round.