Rahman foiled by judges’ call

By Shaun Inguanzo
A JUDGING controversy during Olympic skeet shooting events has denied Keysborough’s Natalia Rahman a medal chance.
Rahman, 26, bowed out of the women’s skeet event in Beijing last week during qualification, and has blamed an all-Chinese judging panel for her failing to make the final cut.
Rahman said judges had ruled at least one of her targets a miss, when in fact it was a hit.
And that point, she told the Star, could have landed her a place in the final.
“There were just so many targets they called a miss that were hits,” Rahman said.
She said judges of her brother Paul’s skeet shooting event called three of his shots as missed, when they clearly broke the targets.
Rahman said there was no appeal process but that the sport’s governing body, the International Shooting Sport Federation, had written to the International Olympic Committee expressing its concerns about judging at the Beijing Olympics.
Rahman is not the first to speak ill of the judges – fellow Australian shooter Russell Mark revealed his frustrations after finishing fifth in the men’s trap shooting event, again citing poor judging decisions.
But Rahman has come to terms with not being able to change the past, and is now looking to the London Olympics in 2012.
“It’s disappointing but at the same time there’s no real use getting worked up and worried about it, because there’s nothing we can do,” she said.
“It happened to a lot of others out there, and everyone is pretty much in the same boat.”
Meanwhile, Rahman said she had achieved success in her second Olympic goal – to be photographed with as many big names as possible.
Staying in the athletes’ village and attending Australian Olympic Committee functions has allowed the Keysborough shooter to start a portfolio of celebrity snaps.
“I’ve been trying to get as many pics as I can with famous people,” she said. “I’ve been copping it a bit from my team-mates about that, but I’ve got photos with Novac Djokovic (tennis player), Princess Mary and Prince Frederick (of Denmark), Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and (singer) Shannon Noll.”
Rahman flies back to Australia this week.