LONDON- Darlington native Michael McPhail came up a little short in his bid to claim an Olympic medal in his first-ever Olympic appearance after finishing ninth overall in the Men's 50M Prone Rifle shooting competition at the Royal Artillery Barracks on Friday, Aug. 3.

McPhail, a Staff Sergeant with the US Army Marksmanship Unit, shooting a 595 in the qualifying round to place in a nine-tie for fourth-place. Sergei Martynov of Belarus tied the existing Olympic and European record by shooting a perfect 600 in the qualifying round.

The nine Olympians faced off in a five shot shoot-off to decide the last five berths in the finals. McPhail fired a 51.3 to place sixth in the nine-man shoot-off, missing a final's berth by 3/10ths of a point as India's Joydeep Karmakar and Croatia's Bojan Durkovic grabbed the final two finals spots after scoring a 51.6 in the shoot-out.