Fort Benning (USA), 13 May 2018 – The final competition day in Fort Benning delivered the ninth and tenth gold medal to Spain and China, folding the third stage of the 2018 ISSF World Cup Series.
10m Air Pistol Mixed Team
The 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team event saw Spain’s Pablo Carrera (31) and Sonia Franquet (37) secure the brightest medal at the end of a tight duel with Serbia’s Zorana Arunovic (31) and Damir Mikec (34).
The Spanish duo opened its match with a strong series of 100.6 points, taking the lead and maintaining it all along the first competition stage, that they closed with a 1.7-point advantage on Arunovic and Mikec. However, as the single-shot series begun, the Serbian team erased the gap, grabbing the lead with two strong rounds above the 41.0-point mark.
Then, in the final and decisive series, Carrera and Franquet overturned the situation once again, scoring 60.5 and finishing with 479.0 points and the gold medals around their neck. Arunovic and Mikec, instead, sealed their final with a 58.1-point series, taking silver with 477.5 points.
Brother and sister Dionysis Korakakis (19) and Anna Korakaki (22) completed the podium in 3rd place. It’s the third medal of the competition for Anna — who won gold in yesterday’s Air Pistol event and bronze in 25m Pistol Women three days ago — while for Dionysis it’s the first international podium of his young career. The Greek team finished with 416.7 points.
Missing the podium by 2.3 points at the moment of the elimination, United States’ 25-year-old Alexis Lagan and 29-year-old Nickolaus Mowrer took 4th place with 372.8 points, missing what would have been the first medal for the host country in Fort Benning.
Finally, the first team eliminated from the final was the second Serbian one, composed by Dimitrije Grgic (33) and Bobana Momcilovic Velickovic (28), 5th at the end with 332.0 points.
10m Air Rifle Mixed Team
The ISSF World Cup Stage 3 in Fort Benning (USA) closed today with its final event: the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team. Once again, China claimed two of the medals up for grabs, as 22-year-old Yao Yuncong and 21-year-old Wu Mingyang climbed atop the podium and secured their country’s fourth gold of the competition.
Despite standing in 5th place after the first 5-shot series, Yao and Wu climbed back position after position, shooting with great consistency and taking the lead after the fourth series, when they were standing in 1st place at 351.7 points alongside Germany’s 23-year-old Selina Gschwandtner and 30-year-old Julian Justus.
There, the two Chinese youngsters nailed the impressive score of 42.7 points, building a remarkable gap and eventually landing on the highest step of the podium with 497.7 points.
The second Chinese team in the final — composed by Yang Haoran (22) and Zhao Ruozhu (19) — avoided elimination in 4th place with a good 41.3-point performance in the fifth series, then overtaking Germany in the following one and claiming silver with 495.7 points. Moreover, Yang and Zhao set a new Qualification World Record with 842.0 points, 3.3 points above the previous one belonging to Vladimir Maslennikov and Daria Vdovina.
Gschwandtner and Justus completed the podium in 3rd place and scored 433.1 points.
Competing on their home turf, 21-year-old Virginia Thrasher and 27-year-old Dempster Christenson of the United States of America finished in 4th place with 391.8 points, while Norway’s Henrik Larsen (20) and Jeanette Hegg Duestad (19) left the final in 5th place with 341.7.
Medals and records
Twelve countries finished on the final medal board: China dominated the World Cup, concluding with a total of 12 medals divided in four golds, five silvers and three bronzes.
The second place on the table was claimed by Greece with one gold and two bronzes, while three different countries closed the competition in third place with one gold and one bronze: Germany, Hungary and Spain.
Bulgaria and Croatia finished with one gold each; Serbia took three silver medals, while both Denmark and Finland secured a single silver medal. At the bottom of the table, finally, placed France and Thailand with one bronze each.
Three new Qualification World Records were set in Fort Benning:
– Zhao Ruozhu and Yang Haoran of China scored 842.0 points in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event
– Anna Korakaki of Greece scored 587 points in the 10m Air Pistol Women event
– Zhu Yingjie of China scored 633.4 points in the 10m Air Rifle Women event
Additionally, Zhu’s score in the Air Rifle qualifications also set a new Junior Qualification World Record.
The 2018 ISSF World Cup Series will resume in a few days, as the fourth stage of the season will take place in Munich (GER) from the 22nd to the 29th of May.