The fifth leg of this year’s ISSF World Cup Series kicked-off in Fort Benning, USA, where the rifle and pistol world cup stage is held from the 13th through the 18th of May. Serbia’s Stefanovic and Mongolia’s Otryad won the firs two finals of the event, today.
Over 600 athletes representing 76 nations arrived in Fort Benning, GA, USA, to compete in the 10 Olympic Rifle and Pistol shooting events, trying to secure one of the 24 Rio 2016 Olympic Quota places up for grabs.
The first athlete to climb atop of Fort Benning’s podium was Milutin Stefanovic of Serbia (30), the winner of today’s 10m Air Rifle Men event. The Serbian shooter beat the current #1 in the world in this event, China’s air rifle champion Yang Haoran (19), to secure his first ISSF World Cup Gold in career and a Rio 2016 Olympic Quota place.
“It’s amazing! The policy of our team is that who wins the Olympic quota goes to the Games. I am going to Rio, to my first Olympic Games.” The winner said, right after the last shot. “I am very satisfied with my result: today’s score is a new Serbian record. I have been shooting for the medals: I tried not to think about the Olympic quota place, and that’s probably the recipe of my success.”
“Going against the top-ranked athletes of the world, I had a lot of pressure on me. But I love the pressure. I am giving my best under this conditions.” Stefanovic added, smiling as one of his teammates reminded him that he will have a lot of pressure to cope with, when he will be in Rio.
The 2014 Youth Olympic Champion Yang Haoran followed him in second place, with 209.0 points, while the Bronze medal and the second Rio 2016 Olympic quota place went to Bulgaria’s Anton Rizov (27), who scored 185.8 points to win his first world cup medal in career in this event.
Day-1 of the ISSF Rifle and Pistol World Cup in Fort Benning continued with the 25m Pistol Women final, conducted at the brand new finals’ hall of the USAMU shooting venue.
The match tuned in favour of Beijing 2008’s Olympic Silver medallist Otryad Gundegmaa of Mongolia (36), who pocketed her second consecutive world cup gold medal of the season as she beat Bulgaria’s Antoaneta Boneva (29) with a net score of 7 to 1 points in the medal match. Boneva collected a Rio 2016 quota place, as Otryad had already won one at the last world cup stage in Changwon, Republic of Korea.
The 25m Pistol Women Bronze medal went to the reigning World Champion, Zhang Jingjing of the People’s Republic of China (26), who beat the 2014 Junior world champion Mathilde Lamolle (18) of France, ranked 88th in the world and competing in her first world cup final round. Zhang left few chances to her young opponents, scoring 7 points to Lamolle’s 1 in the medal match to step onto Fort Benning’s podium. Lamolle secured the second Rio 2016 Quota place assigned by the ISSF today.
The ISSF World Cup Stage in Fort Benning will continue tomorrow, with the 50m Pistol Men final assigning the first medals at 12.00, and the 10m Air Rifle Women final following at 14.45 (GMT-4). All finals will be broadcasted live on http://www.issf-sports.org
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