Malta’s wait for a taste of success at Olympic Games level will have to wait another four years at least after the country’s best prospect to medal, William Chetcuti, was surprisingly off the mark in yesterday’s Double Trap shoot in Brazil. Chetcuti, 31, started the qualifying round at the Deodora ranges on a bad footing after only managing a modest 22 points from a possible 30.
The poor opening probably cracked his confidence as Chetcuti, now in his fourth showing at the Olympics, never really managed to recover after that. His best effort came in the fourth and fifth rounds when he smashed a double 26 but by that time his chances of making the top six and a place in the final had already been gone.
Chetcuti finished his competition with 123 points after rounds of 22, 25, 24, 26 and 26.
He was classified in a low 17th position from 22 competitors, an unexpected outcome with many international pundits in the sport having placed him among the favourites before the Rio Games had gone underway last Friday. Chetcuti made his Games debut as a teenager with a creditable ninth place in Athens 2004.
He improved to eighth in Beijing four years later and was two clays short of a berth in the final in London 2012 when he also placed ninth. His final position and result in Beijing 2008 is the best by a Maltese athlete in the Olympic Games. Chetcuti reached the Rio Games on the back of a very positive build-up that took him to various parts of the globe for ISSF competitions. That included the World Cup series, one leg of which he won in Azerbaijan, in June.
On that occasion in Baku, Chetcuti beat Italian ace Marco Innocenti to the title after a tense shootoff for the gold medal. Yesterday, Innocenti hit a straight of 30 on his way to reaching the semi-finals in fifth place on 136 points, trailing British duo Tim Kneale (139) and Steven Scott (138).
The qualifying round was topped jointly by Germany’s Andreas Loew and James Willett, of Australia. Their score – 140 points – was an Olympic record. A shoot-off was needed to complete the semi-finals line-up.
The remaining berth went to Independent Olympic Athlete Fehaid Aldeehani who had the better of Joshua Richmond (US) and Hu Binyuan (China).