Tokyo Olympics: Matthew Coward-Holley takes shooting bronze for Great Britain

Matthew Coward-Holley claimed Great Britain's 17th medal of the Tokyo Olympics with bronze in the men's trap shooting final.

The world and European champion, 26, was among Team GB's gold medal hopes but paid the price for a slow start, missing three of his first 10 targets.

The Briton recovered with 14 successive hits to climb into medal contention.

But he had to settle for bronze, Czech pair Jiri Liptak and David Kostelecky taking gold and silver respectively.

Coward-Holley scored 33 out of 40 in the final, missing out on a gold medal play-off by one shot to Liptak, who went on to defeat compatriot Kostelecky in a sudden-death shoot-off.

"Being my first Olympic final, the first little bit is always that little bit of tension, that little bit of nerves," Coward-Holley said.

"But you've just got to relax and trust yourself that you can do it.

"It's a little bit of a mix of emotions. I'm a bit lost for words. It's my first Olympics so to come away with a medal, it's phenomenal."

The Chelmsford shooter, who twice broke his back as a teenager playing rugby, appeared well set to make the last two in the six-man elimination final format after putting his shaky start behind him but missed three of his final 12 targets to finish third.

Coward-Holley has provided Britain's first shooting medal of the Games after fellow hopeful Amber Hill was forced to pull out on the eve of the event due to a positive Covid test.

He will get another shot at gold on Saturday alongside Northern Ireland's Kirsty Hegarty in the mixed team trap event, as the duo bid to follow up their World Cup win in Italy in May.