World champions upset in shooting of Chinese City Games ( 2003-10-25 00:26) (Xinhua)
World champion and world record holder Xu Xuan from Shanghai shot a
disappointed 370 points and was eliminated from the final of the women's 10m
running target on Friday at the 5th Chinese City Games.
Xu, who scored a new world record of 391 points to take the women's 10m
running target title in world shooting championships in Lahti, Finland last
year, was out of form in the preliminary round. She scored only 87 points from
the first 10 rapid shots, the poorest of the 30 competitors, and listed 21 in
qualification.
"I did the worst of the year," Xu admitted. "I was not in a good form. I felt
too tired and was not confident enough." According to Xu, she had suffered from
bronchitis before the games and all the physical training had to be suspended.
"Because of the illness, Xu did not have any systematic training before the
games, which resulted in a lack of confidence, " said her coach Wu Mingqing.
"She had tried to adjust, but she just could not manage it."
However, the young sharpshooter didn't care much about the failure, "I will
take it as a lesson. The most important for me is to receive medical treatment
and return to training as soon as possible."
Another world champion Zhang Fu became another casualty in the day's
shooting, losing to Liu Gang in the men's 50m rifle 3 positions. He scored 10.7
in the ninth shot of the final and caught up with the leader Liu Gang. However,
he shot 9.9 in the last one while Liu outscored 0.2 points to grab the gold
medal.
|