(Beijing, April 18) In the men's 50m rifle prone qualifications of the "Good Luck Beijing" ISSF World Cup held at the Beijing Shooting Range Hall this morning, World No.1 Australian marksman Warrant Potent finished first with 599 points and qualified for the final. China's veteran Jia Zhanbo finished ninth with a score of 596 points and was regretfully stopped from going into the final.

Both China's Olympian Qiu Jian and Doha Asian Games champion Liu Gang failed to do well to rank 45th and 44th in the qualifications with the identical score of 590.

Also failing to qualify for the final were Athens Olympic champion American Mattew Emmons, last year's World Cup Final winner Sergei Martynov of Belarus and world No.2 Stevan Pletikosic of Serbia.

Thomas Tamas of the USA and Jury Sukhorukov of Ukraine placed second and third with 599 and 598 respectively.

Placing fourth to eighth in the qualifications were Michael Mcphail of the USA (598), Sergei Kovalenko of Russia (597), Naik Eckhardt of Germany (596), Bjoem Pantzar of Sweden (596), and Artur Aivazian of Ukraine (596) respectively.