KUALA LUMPUR: National shooting coach Firdaus Abd Rahim admitted that his charge Johnathan Wong was not at his best in the men's 10m air pistol qualifying round at the Paris Olympics yesterday.
Firdaus said Johnathan, 31, had shown positive form during the run up to the competition but was not able to deliver the same level of performance during the qualifiers.
"John's performance today (yesterday) was unsatisfactory if compared to how he performed during the preparation phase as well as the final four days of training before the competition," said Firdaus.
"John had been training well here (at competition venue) and there were no signs of any issues.
"It (performance) was a bit surprising because if John had performed to his usual abilities, he would have likely made the final as a number of strong nations such as China and India had faltered.
"The scores of the top-eight shooters were also not that high.
"Regardless, John had done his best to execute the game plan but luck was not on his side."
Johnathan had settled for 26th from 33 shooters in the qualifying round after scoring 570, which was some way off his season's best score of 579.
The eighth-placed shooter Robin Walter (Germany) had scored 577. Only the top-eight advanced to the final which will be held later today.
Johnathan had placed 28th in the 10m air pistol event during his Olympic debut at Rio 2016.