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Shooting Day 2 Review: Kostelecky creates a new shooting legend
Updated: 2008-08-10 19:38:39
(BEIJING, August 10) – August 10, 2008 will always be remembered as the day a new shooting legend was born in the Men's Trap.

Most pundits were expecting today to be a continuation of an old legend, either in the form of two-time gold medalist Michael Diamond of Australia or Athens 2004 gold medalist Alexey Alipov of Russia.

Few expected overnight leader, the Czech Republic's David Kostelecky to hold out the above two legends and win his first gold medal. Even fewer were expecting such a stellar performance from Kostelecky.

Kostelecky only missed one target in the two qualification rounds that were held today, taking his total qualification score to 121. He then blew his competitors away by hitting 25 consecutive targets in the final, which is a perfect score.

Most were still expecting Diamond to win after he shot well in the opening stages of the final. Alipov, on the other hand, lost his composure and dropped four shots.

Kostelecky, however, was undeterred at the sight of the gallant Diamond. The 33-year-old Czech kept his nerves in check and was unbeatable. Diamond ended up missing two targets in the final, but even a perfect score would not have beaten the Czech shooter.

Kostelecky is the second Czech shooter to win a gold medal at Beijing 2008, following on from Katerina Emmons' victory in the Women's 10m Rifle. Despite the driving rain, he remained cool under pressure and ensured that a shooting legend was born.

The other gold medalist today was China's Guo Wenjun, who won the Women's 10m Air Pistol Guo performed extremely well in the final, shooting a score of 102.3 which took her total score to 492.3 -- an Olympic record for the final score.

Guo's victory was even more remarkable because she had to beat Russia's Natalia Paderina who broke the Olympic qualification record in the qualification round. However, Guo proved to have nerves of steel and won China's second Shooting gold medal, following on from Pang Wei's win in the Men's 10m Air Pistol.