Chinese shooter Yi Siling, the London Olympic champion, suffered a huge blow when she ranked seventh in women's 10-meter air rifle at the Gwangju Universiade on Sunday.
The Chinese markswoman, who jumped to fame by winning the London Olympics' first gold medal, was not in form at all at the Universiade, scoring three under-10s out of 10 shots.
According to the new rule of shooting, each finalist needs to make the first six shots. Then after every two shots, the last placed competitor will be eliminated, which means only the eventual gold and silver medalists can hold on to finish the full 20 shots. Yi became the second one to exit and had to settle in seventh.
Yi started well to have the highest score of 10.6 in the opening shot and performed normally to take second place after the first six shots, 0.5 points behind the Singapore Youth Olympics silver medalist Gabriela Vognarova of the Czech Republic.
But a blunder from seventh shot plunged Yi to trouble as the multiple World Cup winner hit just an under-par 9, which dragged Yi to fourth place. The following 9.7 and 9.8-point shots pushed Yi to the brink of elimination. Her 10.3 points in the 10th shot was not enough to keep her in competition.
Iran's Najmeh Khedmati, the fourth placed at the 2014 world championship, beat Vognarova to win the gold medal in 206.6 points.
Yi said she wawn't physically good enough for the competition for she had not fully recovered from a recent fever.
"I'm not feeling well, so the result does not come as a disappointment. As a matter of fact, I do not feel any pressure from my opponents here, but I just did so bad," said Yi.
"Before I got here, I had a fever for several days. I was worried I would become a suspected case of MERS in South Korea. Fortunately the fever broke just before the departure date and I finally made it to the Universiade, but my physical condition wasn't good."
Yi entered China's prestigious Tsinghua University to study business management after the London Olympics and her next target is the Rio Olympics.
"For my future plan, I haven't figured out clearly, but in the short run, it will be Rio Olympics next year. Since I started my schooling in Tsinghua, I spend more time on education than training. For me, the university education is the priority even though I have been sticking to training with the national team."
