By Amlan Chakraborty
CHATEAUROUX, France (Reuters) -American great Vincent Hancock fell agonisingly short of a fifth Olympic gold after the Italian pair of Gabriele Rossetti and Diana Bacosi won the final shooting competition of the Paris Olympics in the inaugural mixed team skeet event on Monday.
Two days after beating protege Conner Prince to win the men’s skeet gold for the fourth time, Hancock teamed up with another apprentice, Austen Smith, but had to settle for silver this time following their 45-44 loss.
Rossetti, who won the men’s skeet gold in Rio, missed just one target and so did Hancock on a hot afternoon at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre.
It was a second medal in two days for Smith, who won the bronze in women’s skeet for the U.S. on Sunday.
China won bronze after Jiang Yiting combined with Lyu Jianlin for a 44-43 win against the Indian pair of Maheshwari Chauhan and Anant Jeet Singh Naruka.
“We are absolutely delighted by this great result,” Bacosi, who won the women’s skeet gold in Rio, told a press conference.
“We worked a lot and fought hard but we also had fun out there.”
Hancock said he was extremely proud of the performance of his teammates.
“She is one of the best competitors that I’ve ever seen,” he said of Smith. “We are sitting next to some very, very good competitors too.
“To win the silver with her was a lot of fun… we enjoyed competing along side each other.”
China comfortably topped the shooting competitions of the Paris Games winning 10 medals, half of them gold.
Li Yuehong supplied the final gold of China’s shooting haul in the men’s 25 metres rapid fire pistol with a comfortable 32-25 win against silver medallist Cho Yeong-jae of South Korea.
It was a China one-two in the men’s rapid fire pistol qualification round, and the trend continued as Li and bronze medallist Wang Xinjie started off with a perfect five-from-five in the final.
Korea’s Cho sandwiched himself between the Chinese pair but world record holder Li, whose Paris preparations included two weeks military training, ran away with the gold.
It was a stellar display by Li, who said he did not initially like the sport.
“I did not think I had any talent but my parents told me to stick to it,” he said. “My teammates also encouraged me along the way.”
A perfect sixth series earned Li a two-point lead and the 34-year-old capitalised on it to win his first Olympic gold after taking bronze in the last two Games.
Compatriot Wang beat Germany’s Florian Peter in a shoot-off to make the podium.
(Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in Chateauroux; editing by Peter Rutherford, Ken Ferris and Bill Berkrot)
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