To compete with Jonas Jacobsson is a tragedy, at least Doron Shaziri from Isreal so believes.
"You should have retired today," he said to his Swedish rival jokingly at the press conference after the event of men's 50-meter free rifle three positions.
On Wednesday, the 43-year-old eight-time Paralympian grabbed his second gold at the Beijing Paralympics breezily, which was his 15th Paralympic gold.
In the qualification round of the exhausting event, the left-handed shooter on wheelchair achieved 1163 points, which not only bettered his own world record by one point, but enabled him to lead among all finalists with a huge advantage of five points from the second, Shaziri.
He started well in the ten-shot final, but Shaziri appeared sharper despite a 8.9 in the first shot.
After the ninth shot, the Isreali managed to narrow the gap to 3.6, while the difference between Jacobsson and the third-placer, Chinese Dong Chao, was a staggering 10.9. That means even if Jacobsson didn't make the last shot, he could probably get a silver.
But he did, and it was a 10.7. Spectators applauded warmly for the legendary shooter. His final score, 1264.3 points, once again improved his own world record.
Shaziri seemed to have lost his nerves and finished with 9.9, but this score was high enough to secure him the silver, although what he wanted was a gold.
"Every Paralympic medal is great, and you should be satisfied with it," he said, while the beaming Jacobsson waved his fists after the final in celebration.
"It was good at the beginning and the end, but the middle section was terrible," he said.
When the shooter was competing, the princess from Sweden went over to watch, who was a friend of his and also watched the previous men's 10-meter air rifle standing event on Monday. Jacobsson was also crowned in that discipline and broke the qualification and total world records.
"I explained the shooting competitions to her, but she said she wouldn't do it because it was too hard," smiled the handsome shooter.
Dong Chao, who sat on a shooting stand during the competition and kept wiping his sweat from time to time, didn't perform steadily in the final, collecting only 96.5 points, or 4.8 points less than the final round score of the champion.
But he presented the host nation a bronze anyway.
"I am very excited after winning this medal because it is my first medal from Paralympics," said the 23-year-old debutant.
"I'd imagined before the final that I would be thrilled as long as I could win a medal," he added.
At the mixed 25-meter sport pistol event, another Chinese shooter Li Jianfei won a silver with 774.3 points, 0.4 points behind Russian shooter Andrey Lebedinskiy who also set a new world record.
"I just focused on each shot, and I didn't know I was the winner until the very last moment," he said.
"In general, I am happy about the result, though several shots were dissatisfactory."
He noted that the Chinese shooter shot very well.
In fact, Li's final round score of 201.3 was the highest among eight finalists.
But the gold medalist in 10-meter air pistol in Athens who only finished sixth this time said he was not satisfied in the result of 25-meter event as well.
"I was aiming to get a gold. The 0.4 points cost me a gold, which is a pity," he said.
However, he still has one more competition. "I will try harder to get a gold medal this time."
(Xinhua News Agency September 11, 2008)