Cyprus Olympic skeet shooter Antonis Nikolaidis narrowly missed out on a bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics on Saturday, when he lost in a final shootout to the Frenchman Anthony Terras. Both competitors finished with a score of 144 points, just behind the gold and silver contenders who both scored 145, setting a new Olympic record.
The bronze medal shootout saw the French holding the medal on the podium, and the Cyprus duo of Nikolaidis and reigning world champion Georgios Achilleos in fourth and fifth place respectively.
The winner of the men’s skeet gold medal was 19 year old Vincent Hancock from the USA. Hancock won the world championships in his first year on the circuit aged just 16, and won in another nail-biting tiebreaker with Tore Brovold from Norway.
Women’s skeet shooter Andri Eleftheriou also missed out on medal glory, but secured a highly respectable seventh place in her final. Athletes Anna Fitidou (pole vault) and Alissa Kallinikou (400 metres) did not qualify for their next rounds.
Cyprus has yet to secure a medal in the Beijing Games, and a pragmatic President Christofias is obviously looking ahead to possible future glory as he returned from Beijing. He sent telegrams of congratulations to Cypriot footballs team Anorthosis, who are just one game away from qualifying for the UEFA Champions league.
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