World champion Jia Zhanbo raised up and waved to the audiences after he made the last shot. A smile on his face, the Chinese shooter knew that he would carry back to his country not only another gold medal and an Arabic-styled wooden ship model, but a long-expected Olympic ticket in men's 50-meter rifle prone event.

"I had full preparation before the competition," said the 33-year-old marksman, "I am here to nail down the ticket."

Wang Yifu, head coach of the Chinese national shooting team, was delighted at the achievement. "He did very well in the final," he said. "Getting this quota place is important for China's improvement in the discipline of men's 50-meter rifle prone."

Altogether 15 disciplines of shooting sport shall be included in the upcoming 2008 Olympic Games, and according to regulation of the International Shooting Sport Federation and the International Olympic Committee, each country and region could at most get 28 shooting places.

To date, China has gained 26 of the total, followed by Russia and the United States with 24.

Recognized as an overlord of shooting events, China, the Olympic host country in 2008 was distributed 9 berths and got another 15 in previous international competitions.

However, one quota place for men's trap, one for men's double trap and two for men's 50-meter rifle prone are still missing, and the eight-day Asian Shooting Championships in the gulf country of Kuwait was the last chance.

The last ticket-wrenching battle was painstaking.

In men's trap event on Friday, Chinese shooters Li Hui, Zhang Bing and Li Yang finished as the 15th, 19th and 22nd respectively, seeing the three tickets of the discipline dropping into the pockets of South Korea, Kuwait and Singapore.

A turning point came two days later, when Chinese shooter, 22-year-old Pan Qiang, captured the gold medal of men's double trap with 189 hits, beating his rival with a slim advantage. "Finally we got this quota place, which has been almost in our reach for several times," said Sun Shengwei, coach in the Chinese national shooting team.

Letting out a long sigh, Sun rose up from his chair and patted Pan's sun-tanned face gently as praise. "This quota place could give us more chance of winning," he said.

The first quota place was acquired by Chinese shooter Hu Binyuan in the World Cup Surl Fort. "This very ticket held the sway in our general deployment for the Olympics," he said.

In fact, another Chinese shooter in men's 50-meter rifle prone had been so close to the other Olympic ticket of the event in Monday's competition as to be once ranked fifth among the eight contestants, but a 9.6 point in the next-to-last shot extinguished his hope for the other ticket.

"After that shot, I told myself, the ticket was gone," he said in disappointment, "but I did my best."

"It is sort of regretful to lose the quota place," said Wang Yifu, "but we reached our goal by getting one."

In the Athens Olympic Games in 2004, China gained the most 26 quota places in shooting events among all competing countries and regions.

(Xinhua News Agency December 11, 2007)