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Chinese Sharp Shooter Zhang Shan Looking for Second Gold
China's double trap skeet shooter Zhang Shan is looking to win her second Olympic gold medal at the upcoming Sydney Games, eight years after astonishing the field in Barcelona by setting the Olympic record of 200 out of 200 targets.
Born in Nanchong, southwestern Sichuan province, the 32-year old Zhang took the Barcelona gold in the traditionally male-dominated shot gun event by beating the field of 40 men and five women.
Now she is back and hoping to win the first-ever Olympic women's double trap skeet shoot, after women were barred from participating with the men in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
"Since I restarted training in 1998, I've been making efforts to reach a new height, but I'm still far away from perfecting the relationship between my gun and myself that I had in Barcelona," Zhang said.
"At that time the gun was an extension of my body and was a part of me," she said.
Since returning to competition, Zhang won the women's double trap skeet at the World Cup in Cairo in March 1998 and won the team skeet shooting at the World Championships later that year in Spain.
However, she has not faired quite as well in other events, placing second in the individual double trap skeet in Spain and placing fourth in the event at a World Cup competition in Kuwait last September.
But Zhang said the schedule for the skeet shooting in Sydney is in her favor, as the bruising competition will be held all in one day instead of being spread over three days as previously.
"I feel that physically speaking I am completely equal to the task," she said.
Zhang, who was first drawn into China's sporting world when she was drafted into special training as a basketball talent in 1976, began skeet shooting for the local Sichuan team in 1984 and joined the national team for the first time in 1989.
Following her gold medal victory in Barcelona she has studied economics at Sichuan University.
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