Olympic Games hopeful William Chetcuti was three clays away from booking a place in the barrage of an ISSF World Cup Double Trap shoot which was held in Beijing yesterday.
Chetcuti, under the watchful eye of coach Jimmy Bugeja and federation president Saviour Portelli, has embarked on the most intensive phase of his build-up to the Olympics next August.
The 'Good Luck' shoot, at the Beijing Shooting Range, was the first of three World Cup Double Trap competitions, the others to be held in Munich (May) and Milan (June).
Chetcuti, who will also figure in the European Championships, in Cyprus in July, started with a good 47 but slid to 43 in his second round before finishing better with 46 hits for an overall score of 136. He finished 20th.
The sixth berth in the barrage was booked by United States shooter Joshua Richmond. His tally of 139 included scores of 48, 44 and 47.
The competition, a test event for the summer Olympic Games, was won by 36-year-old Russian Vasily Mosin.
He won gold after scores of 47, a 50 straight and 48 to qualify for the final five points ahead of Walton Eller, of the US, (145-140).
In the barrage, Mosin hit 46 clays. Eller, the 2003 world champion, targeted 48 but could not match the Russian's overall score of 191 to settle for silver.
Alshamsy Saif, of the United Arab Emirates, was third on 185 points after a shoot-off with Sydney Olympic Games gold medallist Richard Faulds, of the UK.
Another Russian, Mikail Leybo, was fifth with 181 points, two better off than Richmond.
At 22, Leybo was the youngest shooter in the competition yesterday.
Meanwhile, Chinese marksmen Cai Chao, Wang Nan and Hu Binyuan all collected 137 hits in the qualification round and were ranked 11th, 15th and 17th according to their latest scores in the last series.
Famous UAE shooter Ahmed Almaktoum, who was both world champion in 2003 and Olympic gold medallist in 2004, chalked up a modest 134 hits to finish 25th from 47 competitors.
Barrage result: 1. V. Mosin (47, 50, 48 - 145+46) 191; 2. W. Eller (48, 47, 45 - 140+48) 188; 3. A. Saif (44, 49, 47 - 140+45) 185+2; 4. R. Faulds (46, 49, 46 - 141+44) 185+1; 5. M. Leybo (49, 45, 47 - 141+42) 183; 6. J. Richmond (48, 44, 47 - 139+42) 181.