By Jan Lin and Desiree Tay/Red Sports.

SAFRA Yishun, Saturday, July 4, 2009 – Despite promising personal bests in the Asian Youth Games (AYG) shooting trials, both Dominic Cheong and Hoong Shi Xiang fell short of themselves to finish 19th and 20th respectively at the end of the 10m Air Pistol boys’ qualifiers.

Should the Singaporeans have matched their personal bests of 561 for Dominic and 559 for Shi Xiang, they would have made it into the finals but their average scores of low-90s in each round just could not make the cut.

The East Asian favourites from Korea and China were clearly a class above the rest, maintaining scores above 90 and averaging with mid-90s scores in each round.

Singapore’s Shi Xiang hovered in the sixth position with his consistent low-90 scores, and he needed a high score to be in contention for a finals’ spot.

Yet at the critical fifth of sixth shot, Shi Xiang could only manage a score of 89, whereas his closest competitors from India and Taipei shot a score of 97 and 92 respectively to stay ahead of him.

India’s Ajitesh Kaushal would have secured at least a qualification shoot-off slot by his 97 high score in the fifth round, while the Singaporean still stood a very slim chance against Taipei’s Tien Shao-Chien should the latter fired a flop-shot in the sixth and final round.

Though Shi Xiang pulled off a decent score of 91 in the final round, which equalled Ajitesh’s final shot, but Tien Shao-Chien concentrated so well to finish on a high score of 95 that was to give him the ticket to the qualification shoot-off against Ajitesh.

In the other boys’ qualifier, Singapore’s Dominic Cheong Shao Wei got off to a poor start, and a lack of high scores had him fall by the wayside eventually.

Taking the top three spots at the end of both qualifiers were Choi Daehan of Korea with a score of 577, Zhang Jie of China with a score of 573 and Doguzov Yakov of Kazahkstan, who unleashed a promising performance to finish with a score of 566.

The Korean boys were clearly hungry for a medal after they have finished fourth 2 days ago and missed out on a medal at the 10m Air Rifle final.

Korea has in fact two representatives in the final – Choi Daehan in pole position and Kim Geun Bok in fourth, while brethren North Korea’s Kim Song Choi qualified in sixth position. Another East Asian nation shooter, Wang Liang-Chun of Taipei, also finished well in fifth position to qualify.

Iran’s Safariboroujeni Sepehr and India’s Kaushal Ajitesh, who won his play-off, squeezed into the East Asian dominated finalists’ list to qualify in 7th and 8th position respectively.

There was eventually no dramas in the finals as the top three qualifying positions remained unchanged on the podium.

Choi Daehan of Korea took the gold with a total score of 675.9, China’s Zhang Jie was runners-up with a total score of 672.5 and Doguzov Yakov of Kazahkstan narrowly edged out strong competition from his East Asian counterparts of Taipei and North Korea to take the bronze with a score of 663.6.

Taipei’s Wang Liang-Chun, North Korea’s Kim Song Chol and South Korean Kim Geun Bok finished fourth, fifth and sixth respectively with their respective tight scores of 663.5, 663.4 and 662.4 to seal East Asia’s dominance in this event.