Derek Burnett doing well in qualifications

Sparks

Derek Burnett, Ireland's Olympic Trap shooter in Athens, is doing as well as we expected he would in Athens, despite a low score in the today's last qualifying string. He's currently sitting in joint ninth place with Australian Michael Diamond who won the gold in Sydney, and well ahead of UK's Ian Peel who took silver in Sydney.



The results so far show the story - Italian shooter Giovanni Pellielo in the lead on 74 and Russian Alexei Alipov is behind only on countback on 74 as well. There are six shooters on 73 and then seven shooters including Derek are tied on 72 for ninth place. Two more strings to go tomorrow at 0800 our time, and Derek is once more squadded with Michael Diamond and Ian Peel.

Sparks

Also on this note, Derek is to be featured on Network 2 at 1750 tonight. Don't miss it...

KevIRL

Derek finished in a tie for 9th after today's 2nd round of qualification. Missing out on a place in the final by just two traps.

Good show!

Men's trap (125 targets) - Qualification round - 15.08.04

1. Alexei Alipov (Rus) Points:124 - Q Equal Olympic Record

2. Lance Bade (USA) Points:122 - Q

3. Giovanni Pellielo (Ita) Points:122 - Q

4. Khaled Almudhaf (Kuw) Points:121 - Q

5. Adam Vella (Aus) Points:121 - Q

6. Ahmed Almaktoum (Uae) Points:121 - Q

7. Olaf Kirchstein (Ger) Points:119

8. Michael Diamond (Aus) Points:119

9. Francesco Amici (Smr) Points:119

9. Francisco Boza (Per) Points:119

9. Derek Burnett (Irl) Points:119

9. Stephane Clamens (Fra) Points:119

Sparks

It's worth pointing out that Derek shot the same score as Sydney's Olympic Gold medallist, Michael Diamond - and worth pointing out that Michael Diamond could pay out of his own pocket the amount that Derek's received in funding from the Irish Sports Council...
A damn fine performance I say, and something to be very proud of.

Sparks

From targetshootingireland.org:

Derek Burnett started well this morning with another string of 24/25 clays, but sadly in order to make the finals he needed a 25/25 string for his last string and due to gusty conditions, only managed a 23, missing the finals by two placings and two points.However, looking at the scores, he managed to put in the same performance as Australian gold medallist Michael Diamond today and finished on 119, the same score as Diamond; he finished in joint ninth only by countback to the third string, and beat UK silver medallist Ian Peel by a comfortable margin. By any sane standards, this is an impressive performance, and we congratulate Derek on having done so well for Ireland, and we hope to be reporting on his winning the medal he deserves in four years time in Bejing!

Flukey

I heard a little about it on the Sunday Sport programme during the day. Frustrating to have scored a score high enough to have reached the last final and then on top of that to just miss out by one place on a spot in the final. Fair play to him and we must congratulate his efforts.

Sparks

Flukey wrote:

Fair play to him and we must congratulate his efforts.

It's been good to see him getting some media attention though - something you might not know about Derek is that he, David Malone and Phillip Murphy went to Lathi, Finland in 2002 and won the Olympic Trap World Championships in the team event. They came home with a World Championships Gold Medal in their pocket and there was an RTE crew waiting at the airport... for an Irish Dancing team that had come in second in some competition in the UK.
No-one gave them a second look, after they'd beaten everyone in the world, with the exception of the Sunday Times which did a big piece on them.
But that medal was harder to win than an Olympic medal, because as you know, the Olympics focuses on inclusion, whereas the Championships focuses on excellence.

red vex

I thought his covergae in the media was disgracesful. especially on the radio. During the day there was nowhere in the irish media to find out how he was getting. It was very frustrating. Its not as if we have that many people competing in the olympics.

Sparks

We wrote to RTE about that red, and RTE responded quite positively and they're setting up interviews and so on (I understand there was one on the radio this morning, I'm trying to find a realaudio link). The thing was that the EBU were the ones who were deciding what was put on the video feeds from Athens, and for RTE to have filmed Derek when EBU weren't would have cost over twenty thousand euro. And since the EBU didn't even have shooting listed on the webpages as starting on the Saturday, well, you know the rest....