Jitu Rai (IND) and Zhang Jingjing (CHN) won the 50m Pistol Men and the 25m Pistol Women finals, both showing great self-confidence on the road to Rio 2016.
The 50m Pistol Men Final opened Day-2 of the 2016 ISSF Rifle and Pistol World Cup in Bangkok, Thailand. The match turned into a stage of success for India’s Jitu Rai, 28. The winner of the 2014 Asian Games, currently ranked 5th in the world in this event, shot consistently since the beginning of the round, and then peaked in the second half of the final, leaving few chances to his opponents. Rai entered into the last two shots with a 4.5-point advantage on his closest follower, the 2008 air pistol Olympic Champion Pang Wei of the People’s Republic of China (29), and eventually sealed the victory with a sharp 10.0, finishing atop of the podium with a score of 191.3 points. Pang, who had never made it to the podium in 2015, took Silver with 186.5 points, while his teammate Wang Zhiwei, 27 - the Olympic Bronze medallist of London 2012 - claimed Bronze with 165.8 points.
Today’s victory, with such a large margin on those top-ranked finalists, places Jitu Rai atop of the favourites’ list on the road to Rio 2016. The Indian shooter makes no secret about his aims. "The goal for the 2016 season is very clear: I want to win the Olympic Gold medal in Rio de Janeiro," he said right after the final. "Given the amount of training and efforts I put in preparation of this competition, I was really confident before today’s match."
At the following 25m Pistol Women Final, it was the Chinese World Champion Zhang Jingjing, 27, who collected the gold.
"I am very, very happy! I work hard, and I always want to win more!" she said, after winning an all-Asian match.
The Chinese shooter - currently ranked first in the world in this event - started the 2016 season in the best possible way. No surprises there: Zhang is the reigning world champion and the world cup titleholder, as well as the reigning Asian Games champion.
Today, she proved she’s in great shape. Making it into the final with one of the highest qualification scores (586 points), she closed the semi-final atop of the table, with 19 hits. In the Gold medal match, then, she met the 33-year old first-time finalist from South Korea, Park Hyun Joo, a no-match for the expert Chinese athlete, who secured the Gold medal with a score of 8 points to Park’s 4.
"In 2016, I want to improve, and win more medals!" Zhang said after the medal ceremony, talking about her preparation for Rio. At the Games, she will certainly meet Mongolia’s Otryad Gundegmaa, 37, the 2008 Olympic Silver medallist who pocketed today’s Bronze.
Otryad is indeed ranked second in the world, as she finished on the podium at last year’s ISSF World Cup Final in Munich, and at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, behind Zhang. Today, she displayed her strong skills once again, by beating another first-time finalist - Tien Chia Chen of the Chinese Taipei (32) - with a net score of 8 to 2 points.
The 2016 ISSF Rifle and Pistol World Cup in Bangkok, Thailand, will continue tomorrow. Day-3 will see the two more medal matches: the 50m Rifle Prone Men and the 10m Air Pistol Men finals, to be conducted at 11:00 and 13.15 (UTC+7), respectively. Finals will be broadcasted live on www.issf-sports.org
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