S. Korea steals China's thunder in shooting meet
S. Korea steals China's thunder in shooting meet
JAKARTA (JP): South Korea produced a superb but belated
fightback yesterday, tainting China's victory celebrations on the
closing day of the 8th Asian Shooting Championships here.
The all-conquering Chinese needed a face-saving win from Meng
Gang in the men's center fire pistol after South Korea romped
home with five golds and Kuwait shot to a golden double in the
men's skeet on the most frenetic day of the week-long
competition.
Despite the gold medal drought, China remained untouched, with
21 golds, 14 silvers and seven bronzes. South Korea came a
distant second with 10 golds, seven silvers and 12 bronzes,
leaving third-finisher Japan far behind with two golds, four
silvers and six bronzes.
Indonesia finished the quadrennial shooting meet with a
consoling bronze in the newly-introduced women's running target.
With two bronzes in hand, however, host Indonesia did not move
from the 12th place it achieved in the previous meet in Beijing.
No records fell yesterday, taking the new Asian marks' tally
to six. The new records of the championship included a world-
equaling mark set by Zhang Bing in the men's trap.
The men's trio of Lee Ki-choon, Park Byung-taek and Lee Sang-
hak opened South Korea's startling comeback yesterday when they
compiled a total score of 1,735 to win the team center fire
pistol. China, spearheaded by Meng, managed to finish only third,
behind Kazakhstan.
Kong Hyun-ah inspired the South Korean women to sweep the two
golds offered in the small bore standard rifle three positions.
Earlier, the South Korean female shooters ruled the roost in the
running target.
Lucky
"It's a lucky day for our team. We did not expect to win that
many," South Korean head coach Kim Il-hwan said. "I'm satisfied
with the outcome, which indicates that we are much-improved,
compared with our performance four years ago," he added.
South Korea managed only a tiny collection of four golds in
1991.
"Winning 10 golds is enough. China remains beyond our grasp,
simply because they have millions of shooters," Kim said. "We now
hope to do better in the Olympic Games in Atlanta next year."
South Korea had four more Olympic qualifiers, in addition to
the other nine who had assured themselves of their Olympic berths
in previous tournaments.
The championship here also saw 23 shooters from China, Japan,
Chinese Taipei, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, India and Iraq
secure their tickets to Atlanta. There are only 356 quota places
for the 1996 Olympics.
Indonesia has failed to book any berth, but the national
shooting governing body will request a wild-card entry for Aurora
Maris, who set new national women's air rifle match record of 392
on the opening day of competition last week.
Chairman of the body, Edi Sudradjat, told a press conference
prior to the closing ceremony that Indonesian shooters had done
their best.
"At least we now have a more optimistic prediction for the
Southeast Asian Games in December," he said. "Our athletes need
only to maintain their motivation to excel," he added. Indonesia
has set a minimum target of five of the 34 golds at stake in the
18th SEA Games in Chiang Mai, Thailand. (amd)
Medals tally
G S B
1. China 21 14 7
2. South Korea 10 7 12
3. Japan 2 4 6
4. Kuwait 2 0 0
5. Kazakhstan 1 5 3
6. Mongolia 1 2 0
7. India 1 1 2
8. Kyrgystan 0 2 0
9. Thailand 0 1 1
10. Uzbekistan 0 1 0
11. Qatar 0 1 0
12. Indonesia 0 0 2
13. Chinese Taipei 0 0 2
14. Vietnam 0 0 1
15. Iran 0 0 1
16. Iraq 0 0 1