Baki misses the mark

As soon as Abdullah Hel Baki pulled his trigger on the 51st shot, he knew he had done quite a bit of damage to his chances of qualifying. He looked back with an air of resignation at where his coach was standing, to which the coach's reply was a shrug of the shoulders. The coach then looked towards where the Bangladesh contingent was sitting, and the same expression was relayed back.

The whole team was expecting that something good might come from this event. It was Baki's pet event of 10m air rifle, one which had earned him two Commonwealth Games silver medals. But the Jakabaring Shooting Range in Palembang yesterday morning was not a Commonwealth Games venue -- it belonged to the Asian Games where competition is much stiffer. And it took just one single wayward shot to see all that hope come crashing.

Baki made a slow start, scoring 103 points in his first 10 shots, he picked up in the next two batches of 10 shots each and even lifted himself inside the qualification zone. But the 51st shot, yielding a bare 8.6 points against an average of 10+ scores, not only brought down his aggregate score but also killed off his confidence.

“I tried to stay on track, but it didn't happen. I'm upset about that shot and the performance,” the 29-year-old former BKSP student said. “I have been scoring 625 and more in practice regularly, so even though I scored more than my Commonwealth Games score, it's not satisfying. If I could score my practice score, I would have got into the final round.”

The last 10 shots earned him only 100.1 points for an aggregate of 618.4 points as he missed the qualification mark by 6.1 points.

Baki's coach Klavs Christensen, who has been with the Bangladesh team for more than two years now, was admittedly disappointed. “This score may be a bit of an improvement in score, but I expected much better than this. I did not expect medals, but I would have been satisfied with a top-12 finish. But that 51st shot really ended his morale and his chances.

“When you make a bad shot like this, it's hard to recover because you keep thinking of that shot and can't concentrate. So, the rest of the shots are also affected,” he added.

Both the coach and shooter blamed a lack of participation in international competitions for the disappointing performance. While Baki claimed that he scored more than 625 points regularly in practice, he also felt competition is a completely different matter than practice.

“I haven't played in any international competition since the Commonwealth Games while all the other competitors are participating in many World Cup and World Championship events,” Baki said.

The other Bangladeshi participant in this event, Risalatul Islam, finished 29th with a score of 614.3 points.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh's two female shooters -- Umme Zakia Sultana and Sharmin Akter Ratna finished 24th and 33rd respectively among 46 competitors in women's 10m air rifle event later in the morning. Zakia scored 612.6 points while Ratna shot 609.7 points.

The Bangladesh shooting contingent will be hoping that Shakil Ahmed, another silver medallist from the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, will turn the team's fortune with a good performance in the 10m air pistol event today.