China's Secret Weapon:
Well, all right... Du Li's shooting prowess is no secret, but she definitely does a fine job of winning as she represents China in rifle shooting competitions around the world. Born in 1982, she has been at the top of her game for some time now.Previously known as the 10m Women's Air Rifle world record holder for an impressive score of 504.9 (which was matched in April 2008 by Katerina Emmons, nee Kurkova) and winner of the 2004 Olympic Gold medal in Women's 10m Air Rifle, Du Li's shooting ain't anything to sneer at.
(German Sonja Pfeilschifter clobbered Du Li's world record in May, 2008, with a score of 505.0.)
Home Court Advantage:
The 2008 Olympic shooting venue is located in Beijing, China, which may well give Du Li an advantage. Being in one's home nation would seem to add to a shooter's comfort level. That said, she didn't win air rifle Gold at the pre-Olympic World Cup test event there. Instead, she came in third.The loss didn't seem to have hurt her feelings, and she still had a great chance to tote home the Gold medal in 10m Women's Air Rifle, which was the first medal handed out at the 2008 Olympics. Sadly for Du Li, she failed to earn a medal, placing fifth.
She said she "wasn't fully prepared for the pressure of competing at home."
Multiple Disciplines:
Du Li competed in more than one shooting event at the 2008 Olympics. At the test event mentioned earlier, she took the Gold medal in Women's 3 Position Rifle, so she had become a true contender in that event as well.Du made good on her last chance in 2008 for an Olympic medal, when she took Gold at the 3P event, scoring an Olympic record of 690.3 points.
