Jittery Olympic debut for shooter Teo
Shooter Teo fails to make 10m air pistol final
It was an Olympic debut to forget for national shooter Teo Shun Xie.
The 27-year-old Singaporean failed to qualify for the women's 10m air pistol final yesterday as her scores of 93, 95, 91, 96 during the qualifying round saw her finish with a 375 total (out of 400).
She finished 37th out of 44 shooters at the National Shooting Center in Rio de Janeiro.
Teo said that nerves got to her and she "over-controlled", which affected her shooting.
"The start was a bit shaky for me... I didn't handle my nerves well," she said after her event.
"Towards the end, everything started to steady down.
"But it was too late.
GOOD EXPERIENCE
"It was a good experience and hopefully I'll learn from this and, in the 25m pistol event, I won't make the same mistakes."
Just four months ago, Teo won a bronze in the women's 10m air pistol at the same venue, in the Rio leg of the International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup.
But it wasn't a happy return for her yesterday.
She added: "Everything was okay in the warm-up and the sighting but, when they said, 'Your time starts now', I was very nervous and the gun was shaking so much when I aimed at the target."
Teo will be hoping to fare much better in her next event, the 25m air pistol event, tomorrow.
Russian Vitalina Batsarashkina was the top qualifier among eight shooters in the 10m air pistol event with 390. But it was China's Zhang Mengxu who won gold with a score of 199.4 (out of 218) in the final.
The 25-year-old Olympic debutante got China off the gold-medal mark at the Rio Games by comfortably holding off Russian teenager Batsarashkina (197.1), with Greece's Anna Korakaki (177.7) taking bronze.
Zhang, who hails from Jinan in China, grabbed her chance to take the title after her compatriot Guo Wenjun, the champion in Beijing 2008 and London 2012, misfired badly in qualifying to miss out on the final.
The start was a bit shaky for me... towards the end, everything started to steady down. But it was too late. it was a good experience and hopefully i’ll learn from this and, in the 25m pistol event, i won’t make the same mistakes.
— Singapore shooter Teo Shun Xie
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