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Almost perfect

Sweden's Edman wins 50-meter rifle prone event

Jonas Edman: "In qualification, I was quite nervous and I had a fast pulse, but it didn't seem to bother me much. I tried to stay calm." Stu Forster/Allsport

SYDNEY, Australia (CNNSI.com) -- Jonas Edman of Sweden was close to perfect Thursday.

Edman fell one point short of a perfect 600 score in the opening round of the men's 50-meter rifle prone event with 701.3 points, and then went on to win it.

"It's the Olympics, so 600 would be great," Edman said. "But I'm still very happy with winning."

Torben Grimmel of Denmark won the silver with 700.4 and Sergei Martynov of Belarus the bronze with 700.3. Martynov qualified just behind Edman with 598 points. Grimmel shot a 597 to reach the final round of eight.

"In qualification, I was quite nervous and I had a fast pulse, but it didn't seem to bother me much," Edman said. "I tried to stay calm."

Sergei Alifirenko of Russia won the 25-meter rapid fire pistol event, with a score of 687.6. Michel Ansermet of Switzerland finished second with 686.1 and Iulian Raicea of Romania took the bronze with 684.6.

Zemfira Meftakhetdinova of Azerbaijan won the first women's skeet competition with a score of 98. Svetlana Demina of Russia won the silver and Diana Igaly of Hungary the bronze, eliminating Australia's Tash Lonsdale in a shootoff.

Zhang Shan of China, who won the open skeet event at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, scored only 69 in qualifying and didn't advance to the final round.

Germany's Ralf Schumann, who won gold in 1992 and 1996, also failed in his attempt to win an unprecedented third straight rapid pistol gold medal.

Schumann scored 584 to place seventh in the eight-man final. He added 99.3 points there to move into fifth place.

John McNally of Heath, Texas, scored 578 points and finished in a 15th-place tie.

Michael Babb of Germany and Russia's Sergei Kovalenko, medal favorites in the 50-meter rifle, failed to reach the final round. World Cup champion Jozef Gonci of Slovakia, the bronze medalist at the 1996 Atlanta Games, did not compete.

Glenn Dubis of Bethel Park, Pa., finished in a three-way tie for 10th after scoring 595 points in qualifying. Tom Tamas of Columbus, Ga., tied for 13th, one point behind Dubis.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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