Day-5 of the ISSF Rifle, Pistol, Shotgun World Cup in New Delhi, India, was closed by the men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions Final this afternoon.
Japan collected its second consecutive gold medal of the day, won by Yamashita Toshikazu just two hours after the success of his teammate Tomoyuki Matsuda at the men’s 10m Air Pistol final.
New Delhi’s is the first world cup stage of the year, the first after the Games, the first of the new Olympic cycle leading to Tokyo 2020, and many teams identified this competition as proper stage to introduce their new, up-and-coming athletes. Indeed, 4 out of today’s 8 rifle prone finalists had never appeared before in an ISSF world cup final event.
One of them, 19-year old Asian Champion Liu Yukun of the People’s Republic of China, challenged the experienced 39-year old Japanese shooter Yamashita right to the last shot.
The two athletes shot neck and neck throughout the second half of the final, exchanging positions in first and second place. After shot 18 they were tied. After shot 20 Liu moved up in the lead by 0.4 points. Two shots later, Yamashita overtook him again, by 0.1 points, to then sealed the victory at shot 24 with a 10.5 and a total tally of 249.8 points. Yamashita also set the new world record: as the new 2017 ISSF Technical rules were introduced at the end of the season, adding 4 shots to the rifle prone final, all records were rest.
Liu was left in second place, 0.5 points behind the Japanese winner, and set the new junior world record with 249.3 points while closing his first world cup participation with a silver medal around his neck.
Two other first-time participants, Daniel Romanczyk of Poland, 31, and He Denghua of the People’s Republic of China, 25, secured the Bronze medal and the 4th place, with 226.6 and 205.7 points, respectively.
Kenneth Parr of Great Britain, 28, led through the first 10 shots of the final match, but then slid down in the placements as he fired two disappointing shots in the ninth ring, eventually landing in 5th place with 184.0 points after shot 18.
Andre Link of Germany, 22, also made today his first world cup final appearance in this event. A titled 50m Rifle 3 Position shooter, the German athlete seldom competes in the prone event. Today, he scored 161.8 points, following Parr in 6th place. India’s Rio 2016 Olympian Chain Singh, 27, e was eliminated after shot 14 with 141.9 points, taking the 7th place. The 2012 Asian Champion Yajima Midori of Japan, 31, followed him in 8th place with 121.3 points.