Koly narrowly misses out on history

Unheralded shooter Kamrun Koly narrowly missed out on qualifying for the final of the women's 10m Air Rifle event in the ISSF World Championships, falling short by just 0.9 points to finish 14th among 135 shooters in Cairo yesterday.

The 21-year-old -- whose previous best score was 622.9 during the Changwon World Cup in South Korea earlier this year -- recorded the all-time best score by a Bangladeshi shooter in the qualification round of the 10m Air Rifle event at this event, finishing with 629.2 out of 654.

Chinese shooter Yu Zhang was the eighth and final shooter to qualify for the eight-shooter final with a score of 630 in the competition, which features the best shooters in the world and also offers quota spots for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Koly, the Bangladesh Navy shooter, got off to a brilliant start and impressed in the first four series, each of which comprise 10 shots. Barring the first series when she made 104, Koly scored more than 105 out of 109 in each of the three following series (106.3, 105.1 and 105.4).

Those performances saw her in the fourth position overall at the conclusion of the fourth series.

But the slightest dip in her scores in the final two series proved costly. She secured 104.1 and 104.3 points, which meant she fell narrowly short of becoming the first Bangladeshi to qualify for the final of the ISSF World Championships.

Koly would have entered the final had she scored just a single point more in either of the last two series, but she had to settle for 629.2, ruing that one point even more after five shooters finished above her by virtue of decimal points.

Earlier in the day, young shooter Sajida Haque scored a career-best 627.5 to finish 36th while Nafisa Tabasum bettered her previous score and made 621.6 to finish 94th among the 135 shooters.

In the men's 10m air rifle event, Rabbi Hasan Munna and Mohamed Ali almost kept their Baku World Cup performance intact, finishing 55th and 80th respectively out of 114 shooters. Munna scored 624.4 while Ali got 620.4.