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American Graves grabs bronze in skeet

SYDNEY, Australia (CNNSI.com) -- Todd Graves of Laurel, Miss., won the bronze medal in men's skeet Saturday.

Slovenia's Rajmond Debevec had an Olympic-record 1,275.1 to win the men's 50-meter rifle three-position. Juha Hirvi of Finland won the silver with 1,270.5 and Harald Stenvaag of Norway took the bronze, scoring 1,268.6.

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Mykola Milchev of Ukraine won the skeet gold medal, tying the world record with a perfect score of 150. Milchev broke the Olympic mark of 149 set by Italy's Ennio Falco, who failed to qualify for the finals.

Petr Malek of the Czech Republic won the silver at 148 and Graves was third with 147.

All six finalists challenged for medals and all finished with scores of at least 145.

Johnson, of Downers Grove, Ill., won the first gold medal of the Olympics with a victory a week ago in women's air rifle.

Graves, a three-time Olympian, joins Matt Dryke as the only Americans to win an Olympic skeet medal. Graves' previous best was a ninth-place trap-shooting finish eight years ago at Barcelona. He was 11th in the 1992 skeet and 15th four years ago at Atlanta.

Michael Schmidt Jr. of Eagan, Minn. scored 117.0 to finish in a tie for 35th place.

Debevec broke the finals mark of 1,273.9 set at the 1996 Games by France's Jean-Pierre Amat. Debevec also broke the qualifying record by shooting an 1,177 to advance to the eight-man finals.

"This is the thrill of my life. I feel excellent," said Debevec, also the world-record holder at 1,287.9. "This is my fifth attempt at the Olympics and I am really happy to finally win."

Michael Anti of Winterville, N.C., finished in a three-way tie for ninth with a score of 1,164. The only other American in the field was Glenn Dubis of Bethel Park, Pa., who scored 1,160.0 to place 18th.

It was a disappointing performance for Stenvaag in the final. He was second to Debevec in the qualifying, but a score of 6.7 on one of his shots opened the door for Debevec to pull away and Hirvi to jump up and grab the silver.

"I am very happy," Stenvaag said. "I had not expected to win, but when I had 6.7, I knew I could at least get a medal."

China led the overall shooting competition with three of the 16 gold medals.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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