Starik aims for Israel's first ever Olympic medal in shooting

43-year-old competes in 50-meter rifle prone competition; Kornicki and Buskila hope to close gap on top three in sailing.

By ALLON SINAI
starik 88 (photo credit: )
starik 88
(photo credit: )
Guy Starik will be aiming to claim Israel's first ever Olympic medal in the shooting when he competes in the 50 meter rifle prone competition at the Beijing Shooting Range Hall on Friday. The 43-year-old, who is the second Israeli to participate in four different Olympics has never finished higher than 13th position at the Olympics and his first goal on Friday morning will be to get past the qualification round. Starik equaled the world record in this event in Munich in April, shooting a perfect 600 score. Gil Simkovitch will also be taking part in the competition, but is not expected to progress past the qualification round. Also Friday, the 470 Class sailing competitions resume, with the fourth placed Nike Kornicki and Vered Buskila hoping to close the gap on the top three and Udi Gal and Gidi Kliger racing mostly for their pride after a very poor start to the contest, which sees them currently placed in 16th position. Due to Thursday's bad weather, Shahar Tzuberi and Ma'ayan Davidovich will also be in action in the windsurfing competitions on Friday, with Laser Radial specialist Nofar Edelman to race as well. Anya Gostomelsky will race the 50m freestyle on Friday and will be the last Israeli swimmer to compete in Beijing. On Saturday, Itai Magidi will be the first Israeli to take part in the athletics competitions, running the 3000m Steeplechase qualifiers. All seven of Israel's sailors are scheduled to race on Saturday.