Achilleos' glory day

Every day of the games, a country somewhere in the world will gather around TVs and radios to see how their one big shot at Olympic glory is getting on . . .

You think Katie Taylor is carrying pressure into London with her? For all the expectation on her shoulders, she is at least coming from a country that has some sort of Olympic pedigree. By which we mean, at least she’s not going in trying to win her country’s first ever medal of any colour.

For that kind of weight, you have to look to Cypriot Skeet shooter Georgios Achilleos.

Cyprus only started entering people in the Olympics in 1980 and the closest they have ever come to a medal was in this event in Beijing. Achilleos came fifth that day, one place behind Antonis Nikolaidis, who was looking to round off his career by winning a medal in his fourth Olympics. So hungry was the country for an Olympic medal the president and ex-president of Cyprus sat beside each other at the shooting venue that day, a notable concession from two men who weren’t particularly fond of each other.

As it was, Nikolaidis only just missed out on the bronze by a tiny margin.

So now it falls to Achilleos. He learned to shoot during national service in the Cypriot army. He has risen through the world rankings since Beijing and took bronze at the World Championships in Munich in 2010. A serial gold medallist in Grand Prix and World Cups, he goes into the competition today with the whole of his country hanging on every shot.