In the finals, each contestant must take ten shots, with a maximum of 75 seconds allowed for each shot round. But here, all finalists take every shot together, and to subject them to cruelty and give the spectators delightfully sadistic pleasure, after a round of shots, each contestant’s score is called out by the announcer.

Du’s success had been taken for granted for very long. She’s had amazing success in the years before and after Athens at the world championships, and she was thought to have the advantage of competing at home as well as of the symbolic inevitability of starting China off to its projected finish this Games at the top of the medals heap. (Her eventual fifth-place finish was followed very soon after by news that Chinese weightlifter Chen Xiexia had won women’s gold in the 48 kg.)

China’s English language newspaper, China Daily, had asked this morning “Can Du?” The article harked back to an old quote from Du: “I really enjoy the final shot. It feels amazing.”

As it turned out, Du did not get in the last shots in each competition round. A bid to be the last to shoot was made each time by Emmons, who in the end set a new Olympic record (for a total score of 503.5).

The finals are a different shot-game from the qualifications. You can catch each contestant’s muscles stiffening, each one’s odd tics between rounds. And today one could see Emmons straining confidently to get the last shot in. Du was inevitably amongst the first four to shoot. And each time her middling scores of 9.8 and 10.1 drew sighs and tssks from the crowd. (Of course, there is no such thing as a middling score in shooting. You go below par on hitting the 0.5 mm diameter bull’s eye once too often, and there may not be a chance to make up.)

... contd.