The Olympic Shooting competition will begin at the Beijing Shooting Range tomorrow morning, with two gold medals to be decided.
The finals of the Women's 10m Air Rifle and the Men's 10m Air Pistol will be contested, while the qualification round of the Men's Trap will also be held.
The final of the Women's 10m Air Rifle starts at 10:30 a.m. local time, ensuring that the first gold medal of the Games will be given out to the winner. The favorites for the gold medal are Athens 2004 gold medalist Du Li (China), World No. 1 Sonja Pfeilschifter (Germany) and the winner of the Women's 10m Air Rifle at the Good Luck Beijing ISSF World Cup in April 2008, Katerina Emmons (Czech Republic).
Two-time Olympian Pfeilschifter has yet to win an Olympic medal. The coach of the German shooting team, Claudia Kulla, said that Pfeilschifter is concentrating on her own performance rather than worrying about her opponents.
The Men's 10m Air Pistol will start at 12:00 p.m. The favorites for the gold medal include France's Franck Dumoulin, who is World No. 3 and won the Men's 10m Air Pistol at the Good Luck Beijing ISSF World Cup. Dumoulin won the gold medal in the same event at Sydney 2000.
China's Pang Wei, who is only 22 years old, may be one of Dumoulin's main challengers. The world's top-ranked shooters in the Men's 10m Air Pistol, Russia's Vladimir Isakov and Vladimir Gontcharov are both not competing in the event at Beijing 2008.
World No. 1 Michael Diamond (Australia) will be the hot favorite in the Men's Trap. Diamond won gold medals in the event at Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000. His main rival will be World No. 2 Alexey Alipov (Russia) who won gold in the event at Athens 2004. The qualification round for the Men's Trap will take place between 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
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