Maltese interest levels at the 2012 Olympics are set to reach record highs today when William Chetcuti steps into the Royal Artillery Barracks ranges for the Double Trap shooting competition.
For Chetcuti this is his third participation at the Games and in London he will be chasing his best ever result in the competition after placing ninth in 2004 and eighth four years ago.
Medal talk is on everyone’s lips at the moment but Chetcuti is keeping level-headed as he knows his priority should be to break his jinx and make the final following successive shoot-off upsets in Athens and Beijing.
In fact, in his last two participations at the Games, the 27-year-old Manikata shooter came agonisingly close to join the top-six finals but failed to make the cut by a whisker.
In 2004, Chetcuti had finished level with Hu Binyuan (China), Daniele Di Spigno (Italy), Fehaid Aldeehani (Kuwait) and Vitaly Fokeev (Russia) on 134 but it was Hu who booked the coveted slot in the finals after a tense shoot-off.
Four years on and Chetcuti had to endure the agony of another painful exit after another tie for sixth place on 136 points with Ahmed Almaktoum (UAE), Roland Gerebics (Hungary) and Russel Mark (Australia).
This time Mark progressed to the medals shoot but of scant consolation for Chetcuti was his eighth place – the best all-time position for a Maltese sportsman at the Olympics.
Chetcuti arrived in London last Thursday and since then he had three training drills at the same range where the Double Trap event will be staged today.
The early signs look good after a straight of 50 in Tuesday’s session and two other high-40 scores yesterday.
“William looks in good shape,” coach Jimmy Bugeja told The Times from London.
“In the last three days we continued to fine-tune some minor tactics and William now looks well prepared for this challenge.
“More importantly, he looks very relaxed but focused on his competition here. I’m confident that he’ll rank among the protagonists.”
The wet weather that hit the UK in the run-in to the Games was a major concern but so far the conditions have been kind with the shooters.
“The weather wasn’t that bad since we arrived,” Bugeja said.
“The skeet shoot was held in ideal conditions this week. Today, there was some drizzle but it had little effect on the shooters. Hopefully it stays like that... at least for one more day.”
In all, 24 shooters will be lining up for the Double Trap shoot with Chetcuti inserted in the fourth and final group along with Francesco D’Aniello (Italy), Peter Wilson (Britain) Richard Bognar (Hungary), Vasily Mosin (Russia) and Anton Glasnovic (Croatia).
Defending champion Walton Eller, of the US, is in the first batch that start their quest at 10 a.m. (Malta time).