The second competition day at the ISSF World Cup Stage 3 in Fort Benning (USA) saw the People’s Republic of China take five of the six medals up for grabs, as Wu Jiayu and Wang Meng Yi signed a gold-silver combination in the men’s 10m Air Pistol event.
Competing in the second ISSF World Cup of his young career, 21-year-old Wu crushed the 12th place he obtained at last month’s World Cup in Changwon (KOR), climbing up the table after standing in 5th place after the two 5-shot series.
Wu, indeed, opened the elimination stage by firing five consecutive shots inside the 10th ring — including a perfect 10.9 on his 15th one — and approaching the final 2-shot series 0.5 points behind his teammate Wang.
There, Wu nailed a disappointing 9.4 with his 23rd shot, to which Wang answered with an almost-equal 9.7. In the final and decisive shot, however, Wu Jiayu shot a fantastic 10.6, definitely overtaking his Chinese rival and pocketing the gold medal with 241.2 points. Wang, who sealed his match with a 9.6, took silver with 241.0.
The podium was then completed by Spain’s Pablo Carrera (31) — a two-time World Cup gold medalist in this event — who secured his seventh World Cup medal overall, finishing in 3rd position with 220.6 points, only 0.6 behind Wu at the time of the elimination.
Just outside of the medal position, Italy’s 43-year-old Giuseppe Giordano missed the podium by 0.5 points, taking 4th place in his 26th World Cup start in the Air Pistol event and finishing with 197.8 points.
the Italian experienced shooter was followed by the 2017 ISSF Shooter of the Year — Japan’s 42-year-old Tomoyuki Matsuda — who concluded in 5th position with 177.5 points, and by Vietnam’s 43-year-old Tran Quoc Cuong, 6th with 158.3.
The bottom two positions were taken by Ukraine’s Denys Kushnirov and Great Britain’s Kristian Michael Smeeton Callaghan (24): after signing the highest score in the qualification round, 25-year-old Kushnirov took 7th place with 137.3 points, while Callaghan placed 8th in his first final participation, scoring 110.8 points and compromizing his match with a bad 7.3 on his 11th shot.
The ISSF World Cup Stage 3 in Fort Benning will continue tomorrow with two more finals: the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Men, scheduled at 12:45 pm (UTC-4:00), and the 25m Pistol Women, scheduled at 3:00 pm.
The match will be streamed live on the ISSF website, on the Federation’s Livestream channel and on its official Facebook page.
Live results, news and updates will be available on www.issf-sports.org and on all ISSF social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Weibo and Youku.