Age no handicap in national shooter Johnathan Wong’s hunt for Olympic glory in Paris

KUALA LUMPUR, July 27 — As age is the biggest obstacle for athletes to remain competitive in most sports events, national Olympic shooter Johnathan Wong can count himself among the “lucky ones” at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

The 31-year-old athlete, making his second Olympic appearance after the Rio 2016 edition, will see action in his favourite event, the men’s 10-metre (m) air pistol, in the qualification round at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre in the Centre-Val de Loire region at 4.30pm Malaysian time today.

The increasingly mature Johnathan does not need to worry about age affecting his performance, as experienced by many athletes in football, athletics, or diving.

This is because success in the sport of shooting depends, among other things, on physical ability, mental strength, and the athlete’s discipline during preparation and on the field, making psychological composition as important as technical skills.

Vietnamese athlete Hoang Xuan Vinh proved that age was no handicap at all when he won his country’s first Olympic gold at 42 after dominating the men’s 10m air pistol event at the Rio 2016 edition.

Four years later, at the Tokyo 2020 edition, Iranian shooter Javad Foroughi also won gold in the men’s 10m air pistol at the age of 41.

For Paris 2024, Turkish shooter Yusuf Dikec, 51, is the oldest athlete among the 33 participants in the men’s 10m air pistol event, with the average age of participants being 29.6 years.

The youngest shooter this time is Chile’s Diego Santiago Andres Parra Vergara, making his Olympic debut at the age of 16.

Aware of the high intensity of competition at the Olympics, Johnathan has prepared thoroughly and holistically, describing it as his first experience with such comprehensive preparation to ensure he is at his best.

With his preparation bolstered by assistance from the National Sports Institute, the motivation for the 2021 SEA Games 10m air pistol gold medallist in Hanoi, Vietnam to excel is at its peak.

“I will try to do my best because we have already done the preparation, and compared to the last time, I think this is the best preparation we have done, so we hope for the best.

“I will be competing with 32 other participants; all are about the same standard, so it’s just the performance on that day (that counts),” said Johnathan, who began shooting at the age of 13, when met recently.

Only the top eight shooters in the qualification round will advance to the final the next day (July 28).

In Paris, Johnathan’s main mission is to surpass his personal best score this season of 579 points, recorded at an open shooting championship in Denmark this year.

Johnathan holds the national record in the event with 585 points, which he set at the National Shooting Range in Subang in 2015.

Johnathan is one of the earliest Malaysian athletes to qualify on merit for Paris 2024 after finishing fourth in the 10m air pistol event at the World Shooting Championship in Changwon, South Korea, in October 2023.

At Rio 2016, he finished 28th in the 10m air pistol event and 37th in the 50m pistol event.

Johnathan is the third national shooter to compete in the Olympic Games after Joseph Chong at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, and Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

The Paris 2024 Olympics runs from July 26 to August 11.