Maltese interest in the 2016 Rio Olympics reaches a high this afternoon when William Chetcuti competes in Double Trap at the Olympic Shooting Centre in Deo-doro, Brazil.
Chetcuti is making a record fourth participation at the Olympics. He is the country’s best hope to make the podium for the first time in history following his eighth placing in Beijing 2008 and missing the final cut by a whisker in London four years ago.
The Double Trap competition gets underway at 2pm (Malta time) with the first of five qualifying rounds of 30 clays each. The top six book their place in the semi-finals later in the afternoon.
Twenty shooters have registered for the competition with Chetcuti drawn to shoot in Group 3 along with Italy’s Marco Innocenti, Britain’s Scott Steven, Joshua Richmond, of the US, and Zimbabwe’s Michael Nicholson.
Chetcuti left for Brazil on July 30 with coach Jimmy Bugeja who has been monitoring his shooter’s daily training sessions at the Deodoro ranges.
Yesterday, Chetcuti figured prominently in the official training, organised a day ahead of competition. He compiled consistent high scores including a straight that augurs well for today’s competition.
Britain’s Peter Wilson will not be defending the Double Trap title he won in London four years ago as he failed to win a quota for the Rio Games. Russia’s Vasily Mosin, the 2012 silver-medallist, made it to Brazil and hopes to go one better than the previous Games.
Meanwhile, Eleonor Bezzina made her second and final appearance at the Rio Games yesterday as she competed in the 25m air-pistol shoot.
Bezzina, the first female shooter to represent Malta at the Olympics, had an encouraging performance in the 10m air-pistol on Sunday, placing 22nd from 44 shooters.
However, she found competition much tougher on the longer distance.
Bezzina compiled scores of 96, 94 and 93 in the precision segment to amass 283 points.
In the rapid leg, she then managed 96, 91 and 92 for a 279 score and 562 points overall, placing a low 36th from 40 starters. Greece’s Anna Korakaki took the gold medal after beating Germany’s Monika Karsch in the final.
At the Aquatics Stadium, Andrew Chetcuti swam in the 100 metres freestyle heats, yesterday.
Racing in the third heat, Chetcuti, Malta’s flagbearer in Friday’s opening ceremony, led at half-way stage but faded in the final metres to place fourth in 51.37 seconds.
His time was 0.42 seconds slower than his own national mark. Chetcuti was classified 51st overall from 59 starters in 100m freestyle.