Maria Grozdeva of Bulgaria who’s also the president of Bulgaria Shooting Union, won her 16th World Cup Gold medal competing and getting better of 2014 ISSF World Champion Zhang Jingjing of China in an uncontested Gold medal match.
The bronze medal was taken by Ukrainian Olena Kostevych who collected her second medal in this competition who bested Germany’s Monika Karsch, claiming four consecutive points in the last two series to seal the 8-points-to-6 victory.
At this World Cup, Kostevych is the only athlete to secure multiple medals.
Grozdeva, who, incidentally, is the only Woman shooter to have successfully defended her 25M Pistol Olympic Champion title, She won gold at Sydney Olympic Summer Games 2000 and Athens Olympic Summer Games 2004. Apart from her two gold, she also has three bronzes in 10 M Pistol in 1992 Barcelona Olympics Summer Games, 1996 Atlanta Olympics Summer Games and 2004 Athens Olympics Summer Games.
Grozdeva, who last won an ISSF World Cup gold in Belgrade (Serbia) in 2010, six years ago. Grozdeva overcame the challenge of the current leader of the World rankings and Granada 2014 ISSF World Cup Gold medalist Zhang Jingjing in the finals hall of Olympic Shooting Centre in Rio de Janeiro. Gozdeva is also the founder of the Bulgarian Shooting Union.
Post the win, Grozdeva said,“It’s the first time that the President of a shooting federation wins a World Cup Gold medal.”
“Actually, I’m more a shooter than a president now, as I’m training really hard for the next World Cup stages in Munich and Baku. But I am also very lucky to have many people helping me with my job. We started from scratch three years ago, so we obviously have a lot of things to do.” She further added.