The two athletes shared the top of the scoreboard from the qualifications right to the end, when it was Vietnam’s Hoang to shoot the winning series.
2012 Asian Champion Xuan Vinh Hoang of Vietnam won today’s 10m Air Rifle Men event, on the third day of competitions at the 2013 ISSF World Cup in Changwon, Korea.
Today, he made it to the final with 583 points, starting the match in second place. But with the new ISSF rules, the qualification score does not count anymore in the final. Qualification scores are indeed not taken forward into the medal match: all the finalists start from zero.
The new final match starts off with two series of three shots. Then, the final proceed with single shots. Starting from the eighth shot, and then after every two shots, the athlete with the lowest score is eliminated, until the medals are decided. The Final match ends up with two shooters on the line, duelling for the Gold on the last two shots.
The 38-year old Vietnamese shooter climbed up the final’s scoreboard, shooting neck and neck against China’s Wang Zhiwei, the 2012 Olympic Bronze medallist. The two contenders fought right to the last shot, when it was Xuan Vinh Hoang to secure the Gold, with a total score of 200.8 points to Wang Zhiwei’s 200.1 points.
Hoang had placed in fourth at the 2012 Olympic Games competing in the 50m Pistol Men event, finishing only 0.1 points far form the podium. There, shooting with the old rules, he had paid a lower qualification score. With the new rules, which are rewarding the athlete who performs better even when under stress, he would have finished on the podium.
Today’s Bronze medal went to India’s Prakash Nanjappa, who finished on the third step of the podium with 180.2 points, after outdoing the 2010 World Champion Tomoyuki Matsuda of Japan, who place in fourth with 158.7 points.
Nanjappa, 37, also finished in the spotlights two days ago, when he ranked eighth at the 50m Pistol Men final. And these where his best placements ever, in an ISSF competition: he had never made it to a final round, before.
Kazakhstan Rashid Yunusmetov palce in fifth, today, scoring 137.2 points, and was followed by Korea’s Lee Daemyung, who placed in sixth on his home gound with a total of 117.7 points.
The first two shooters to be eliminated, today, were India’s Jiturai Jiturai and China’s Mai Jiajie, who took the seventh and eighth place with 97.4 and 77.1 points, respectively.