Chinese sharpshooters kept their heads cool despite their best-ever showing at the Asian Games, saying that daunting challenges loom at the 2008 Olympic Games.
China dominated the Lusail Shooting Complex in Doha by winning 27 out of 44 gold medals on offer, 12 from the 15 Olympic events.
"We gave up four entries in four team events and did not feature best shooters in six events," said Gao Zhidan, China's team leader. "We are very satisfied with the amount of golds in such condition."
Kazakhstan was second on the gold medal tally with six, followed by South Korea, India and Kuwait each with three. The other two golds went to DPR Korea and Thailand.
The Chinese rifle and pistol team, led by former sharpshooter Wang Yifu, wrapped up 10 golds in the Olympic events while the shotgun team took two out of five.
In the women's air rifle and men's 25m rapid fire pistol events, Chinese swept the top three of the individual rankings. And they finished one-two in other six events.
"In Asia, we still play a leading role," said Gao. "But we have to admit that some of our strong opponents did not compete to their standards."
Mongolia's World Cup final winner Gundegmaa Otryad, who was considered the most dangerous rival of the Chinese women's pistol team, lost her pace in the qualification round of the 25m pistol with a score of 577 points, nine points short of her performance in the World Cup final.
"I think she had borne too much pressure, as she was the main gold medal hope of her nation," said Wang Yifu.
Among the 12 golds, seven were taken by the debutants.
"To give Asian Games first-timers an idea of comprehensive meet and to see how they deal with the pressure are among our goals here," said Gao. "We are very happy to see most of them have done a good job, which brought us hope."
However, challenges are looming.
"Some Chinese athletes did not show their standards despite their wins," said Gao. "For example, although we swept the men's rapid fire pistol medals, the leading qualification score of 580 points was a lot lower than their personal bests."
Chinese rapid shooters have been dreaming for an Olympic gold medal for 20 years. Chen Yongqiang and Zhang Penghui went to the Athens Olympics with great ambition and confidence, but finished only sixth and seventh respectively.
"I cannot manage to be excited," said Sheng Haoming, the coach of the Chinese trio, after the competition here on Wednesday. "In the training sessions, they can shoot more than 585 points in the qualification. As for Zhang Penghui, who is among the world's top final shooters, the final round score of 198.1 was almost a shame. "
World champion Zhang now owns the highest 20-shot final round score of 204.6 points after new rules about the weapons were adopted since 2005.
"They should learn to deal with pressure in such a multi-sport meet. Otherwise, they may fail at the Beijing Olympics," Sheng added.
Pressure also affected China's top women skeet shooter. Wei Ning, former world champion and Olympic silver medalist, failed to hold on her nerves in the final round, losing two easy targets and one in each three pair of targets in the shoot-off, and was beaten by DPRK's Kim Myong Hwa.
"Our athletes will face much more pressure in the Beijing Olympics than they do here," said Gao. "If they can not overcome the pressure in the Asian Games, how can they win in 2008?"