Suhl, Germany, June 28, 2018: The second ISSF Junior World Cup of the 2018 season closed today at the Suhl Shooting Centre, awarding four more sets of medals in the three Olympic Shooting disciplines.
10m Air Pistol Mixed Team Junior
In the opening match, India swept the Air Pistol events in Suhl, taking both gold and silver in the mixed team event and adding it to the individual golds secured by 16-year-old Chaudhary Saurabh and 16-year-old Manu Bhaker.
Teamed up with Devanshi Rana (18), Saurabh climbed atop the mixed team podium, totalizing 478.9 points after standing in 1st place all along the match. The second Indian team in the final — composed by Bhaker and Anmol Anmol (19) — climbed back up from the second-to-last to the 2nd position, taking advantage of the fact that the Chinese team fired their 44th shot out of the 60-second limit, sliding down two positions and being eliminated in 4th place.
The podium was then completed by Republic of Korea’s Kim Woori (20) and Lim Hojin (17), who scored 37.7 points in their second-to-last series and switched from the silver to the bronze position.
Bhaker and Anmol concluded with 474.4 points, while Kim and Lim signed off with 414.1.
Skeet Women Junior ISSF Junior World Cup
After placing 5th among juniors at last year’s ISSF Shotgun World Championship, Slovakia’s 18-year-old Vanesa Hockova pocketed the brightest medal in Suhl, ruling the Skeet Women Junior final and writing a new World Record.
Hockova, who is currently 72nd in the World Ranking of the Skeet Women event, battled for the whole match with first-time participant Anna Zhadnova of the Russian Federation.
After entering the 10 final targets with the same score of her rival, however, the Russian 16-year-old missed three clays before the end of the match, while the Slovakian shooter nailed a perfect streak of 10 hits, finishing with 52 crushed clays out of 60 and signing a fantastic gold medal-World Record combination.
Zhadnova placed 2nd and won silver with 49 hits.
The bronze was awarded to People’s Republic of China’s 19-year-old Che Yufei — Junior World Champion in Lonato (ITA) in 2015 — who concluded her match with 36 hits out of 50 targets and claimed the third Junior World Cup medal of her career.
On the team podium, the Russian Federation took gold and set a new World Record with 308 target hits. The People’s Republic of China and India followed in 2nd and 3rd position, respectively crushing 302 and 294 targets.
Skeet Men Junior ISSF Junior World Cup
The reigning junior World Champion of the Skeet Men event — Denmark’s 19-year-old Emil Kjelgaard Petersen — added another trophy to his showcase, ruling the final match at the Junior World Cup in Suhl.
To climb atop the podium, Petersen hit all of his first 33 targets, building a slight gap that he was able to maintain until the very last target, which he missed. Despite that, the Danish shooter signed the highest score, hitting 56 of his 60 clays and besting Czech Republic’s Jaroslav Lang by just 1 hit.
The Czech shooter, indeed, took silver with 55 hits, bagging the first ISSF medal of his young career (ISSF Junior World Cup).
Italy’s Elia Sdruccioli — who placed 2nd behind Petersen at the 2017 ISSF Shotgun World Championship — completed the podium in 3rd place with 44 target hits out of 50, adding a Junior World Cup bronze to the gold he won at last year’s competition in Porpetto (ITA).
The Czech Republic also climbed on the highest step of the team podium, hitting 335 total targets and preceding two Italian teams: team 1 placed 2nd with 334 hits, while team 2 won bronze with a total of 331 hits.
50m Rifle 3 Positions Men Junior ISSF Junior World Cup
Junior World Cup debutant Marco Suppini of Italy won the last gold medal of the competition in Suhl, climbing atop the podium in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Men Junior event.
The 19-year-old athlete shot with great consistency all along the final, gradually improving his position and definitely taking the lead during the standing position, when he nailed two impressive series of 50.2 and 51.0 points, then sealing his match by firing three of his last five shots in the 10th ring (ISSF Junior World Cup).
Suppini finished with 455.0 points, prevailing over Russian Federation’s Artem Filippov. The 19-year-old Russian — who was leading the match at the end of the prone position —competed in the first final match of his career, taking silver with 452.7 points.
The podium was completed by People’s Republic of China’s Zhang Changhong — gold medalist in this event at this year’s first Junior World Cup in Sydney. The Chinese 18-year-old signed off in 3rd position with 440.5 points.
Atop the team podium, the Czech Republic scored 3469 points to secure the brightest medal, while the Russian Federation ended up in 2nd position with 3459 and Hungary took bronze with 3451.
Medals recap ISSF Junior World Cup
India and the People’s Republic of China battled all along the competition for the top position in the medal board, which was eventually taken by the Indian National Team with 26 total medals: 15 golds, two silvers and nine bronzes. People’s Republic of China took 2nd place with 21 podiums: six golds, nine silvers and six bronzes.
Italy finished behind the two giants, taking 3rd place with four gold medals, five silver and eight bronze ones, followed by the Czech Republic and the Russian Federation, who respectively placed 4th and 5th. At the end of the competition, 24 National Olympic Committees had their name on the board.
The next ISSF competition will be the ISSF World Cup Stage 6, taking place in Tucson (USA) from the 9th to the 19th of July. —- ISSF
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