SHOOTING: Former champs forge golden comebacks at ISSF Worlds

It wasn’t easy, but two champions from prior ISSF World Championships found a way to win again in Changwon (KOR).

The home crowd at the Changwon International Shooting Centre – a full house – went wild for the defending men’s 10 m Air Pistol champion, Jong-Oh Jin (KOR) as he mounted a comeback from 6.2 points down to get into a shoot-off with Artem Chernousov (RUS). He ended the suspense with a 10.3-9.5 win to take his second world title.

Jin trailed, 185.3-179.1 with six shots left, but rang up six brilliant shots in a row: 9.8, 10.0, 10.5, 10.4, 10.3 and 10.4 to tie the match. Not bad for the four-time Olympic gold medalist, who won the Free Pistol in 2008-12-16 and the Air Pistol in London in 2012.

Slovakia’s Zuzana Rehak Stefecekova returned to the top of the World Championships podium again with a shoot-out win in the women’s Trap competition. She won in 2010, finished 13th in 2014 and in between won Olympic silver medals in 2008 and 2012.

This time, she had to out-shoot Xiaojing Wang (CHN), who led with 24 hits in her first 25 targets to 22 for Rehak Stefecekova. But the former champ got closer and closer, scoring 16 targets in a row to draw even after 40 shots. Both hit eight of the final 10 targets to go to the shoot-off and Slovakian hit three targets in a row and Wang missed her third shot to decide the outcome.

“The goal of the day was to achieve an Olympic quota place [in the top four]. And I made it. I am so happy that’s in my pocket! Everybody know that I struggle in finals, sometimes. It can be great or it can be really bad. Today it has been great, probably my best final ever.

“It was open until the end, it was really thrilling.”

The U.S. has won two team medals in the senior division, with a silver in the men’s Trap with Walton Eller, Grayson Davey and Casey Wallace and a team bronze in women’s Trap, with Kayle Browning, Ashley Carroll and Aeriel Skinner hitting 339 clays.

The 2018 championships continue through 15 September. It’s also the start of the Olympic qualification cycle for Tokyo as 60 quota places – generally the top four in each event – will be assigned for the 2020 Games. The remaining senior-level events and finals schedule:

∙ 7 September:
Men’s 50 m Rifle/3 Positions
Mixed Team Trap

∙ 8 September:
Women’s 50 m Rifle/3 Positions
Women’s 25 m Pistol

∙ 9 September:
Women’s 10 m Running Target
Men’s 10 m Running Target

∙ 10 September:
Men’s 25 m Rapid Fire Pistol

∙ 11 September:
Women’s Skeet

∙ 14 September:
Men’s Skeet

The ISSF has exceptional coverage on its Web site here. Summaries so far:

ISSF World Championships
Changwon (KOR) ~ 31 August-15 September 2018
(Full results here)

Men

10 m Air Pistol: 1. Jong-Oh Jin (KOR), 241.5; 2. Artem Chernousov (24.15), 241.5 (Jin won shoot-off: 10.3-9.5); 3. Dae-Myung Lee (KOR), 220.6; 4. Pavlo Korostylov (UKR), 198.5; 5. Ruslan Lunev (AZE), 177.7; 6. Seung-Woo Han (KOR), 158.8; 7. Quoc Cuong Tran (VIE), 136.9; 8. Abhishek Verma (IND), 118.0.

Team 10 m Air Pistol: 1. Korea (Dae. Lee, Jin, S. Han), 1,747; 2. India (Verma, Mitharval, Rizvi), 1,738; 3. Russia (Chernousov, Koulakov, Gourianov), 1,736; 4. Vietnam, 1,731; 5. Serbia, 1,729; 6. Ukraine, 1,729; 7. China, 1,726; 8. Italy, 1,726. Also: 17. United States (Nick Mowrer, Jerson Herndon, James Hall), 1,710.

10 m Air Rifle: 1. Sergey Kamenskiy (RUS), 248.4; 2. Petar Gorsa (CRO), 247.5; 3. Miran Maricic (CRO), 227.3; 4. Zicheng Hui (CHN), 206.1; 5. Hoaran Yang (CHN), 185.7; 6. Deepak Kumar (IND), 164.1; 7. Mahyar Sedaghat (IRI), 143.0; 8. Taeyun Nam (KOR), 121.4.

Team 10 m Air Rifle: 1. China (Yang, Hui Yu), 1,887.4 (World Record; old, 1,886.5, China, 2014); 2. Russia (Kamenskiy, Maslennikov, Dryagin), 1,884.0; 3. Korea (Nam, Kim, Song), 1,878.5; 4. India, 1,878.4; 5. Croatia, 1,878.3; 6. Japan, 1,877.6; 7. Hungary, 1,876.6; 8. Iran, 1,875.9. Also: 17. United States (Bryant Wallizer, Dempster Christiansen, Lucas Kozeniesky), 1,866.0.

Trap: 1. Alberto Fernandez (ESP), 48 (equals World Record, Fernandez, 2017); 2. Erik Varga (SVK), 47; 3. Abdulrahman Al Faihan (KUW), 32; 4. James Willett (AUS), 28; 5. Mauro de Filippis (ITA), 23; 6. Walton Eller (USA), 17.

Team Trap: 1. Kuwait (Abdul Al Faihan, Talai Alrashidi, Khaled Almudhaf), 360; 2. United States (Walton Eller, Grayson Davey, Casey Wallace), 360; 3. Italy (De Filippis, Pellielo, Grazini), 360; 4. Russia, 359; 5. Croatia, 358; 6. Czech Republic, 357; 7. Portugal, 356; 8. Slovakia, 355.

Women

10 m Air Pistol: 1. Anna Korakaki (GRE), 241.1; 2. Zorana Arunovic (SRB), 239.8; 3. Bomi Kim (KOR), 218.8; 4. Qian Wang (CHN), 198.1; 5. Ranxin Jiang (CHN), 178.7; 6. Vitalina Batsarashkina (RUS), 157.2; 7. Klaudia Bres (POL), 136.9; 8. Minjung Kim (KOR), 116.5.

Team 10 m Air Pistol: 1. China (Jiang, Wang, Ji), 1,739 (World Record; new event); 2. Korea (Min. Kim, B. Kim, Kwak), 1,734; 3. Russia (Batsarashkina, Lomova, Medvedeva), 1,720; 4. India, 1,713; 5. France, 1,712; 6. Iran, 1,711; 7. Poland, 1,710; 8. Chinese Taipei, 1,708. Also: 14. United States (Sandra Uptagrafft, Lexi Lagan, Nathalia Granados), 1,700.

10 m Air Rifle: 1. Hana Im (KOR), 251.1; 2. Anjum Moudgil (IND), 248.4; 3. Eunhea Jung (KOR), 228.0; 4. Apurvi Chandela (INDZ0, 207.0; 5. Adele Tan (SGP), 184.3; 6. Ying-Shin Lin (TPE), 163.4; 7. Petra Zublasing (ITA), 142.9; 8. Isabella Straub (GER), 122.1.

Team 10 m Air Rifle: 1. Korea (Im, Jung, Keum), 1,886.2 (World Record; new event); 2. India (Moudgil, Chandela, Ghosh), 1,879.0; 3. Germany (Straub, Gschwandtner, Simon), 1,878.4; 4. Chinese Taipei, 1,878.2; 5. Mongolia, 1,877.3; 6. China, 1,876.5; 7. Russia, 1,875.6; 8. Romania, 1,873.5. Also: 16. United States (Sarah Beard, Minden Miles, Alison Weisz), 1,867.0.

Trap: 1. Zuzana Rehak Stefecekova (SVK), 45; 2. Xiaojing Wang (CHN), 45 (Rehak Stefecekova won shoot-off, 3-2); 3. Silvana Stanco (ITA), 36; 4. Laetisha Scanlan (AUS), 30; 5. Chun Lin Yi (CHN), 25; 6. Beatriz Martinez (ESP), 19.

Team Trap: 1. Italy (Stanco, Rossi, Iezzi), 343 (World Record; new event); 2. Spain (Martinez, Galvez, Munoz), 342; 3. United States (Kayle Browning, Ashley Carroll, Aeriel Skinner), 339; 4. China, 338; 5. Chinese Taipei, 329; 6. Finland, 329; 7. Korea, 326; 8. India, 325.

Mixed

Team 10 m Air Pistol: 1. Vitalina Batsarashkina/Artem Chernousov (RUS), 488.1; 2. Qian Wang/Meng Yi Wang (CHN), 480.2; 3. Olena Kostevych/Oleh Omelchuk (UKR), 416.7; 4. Zorana Arunovic/Damir Mikec (SRB), 376.7; 5. Sonia Franquet/Pablo Carrera (ESP), 331.6.

Team 10 m Air Rifle: 1. Ruozhu Zhao/Haoran Yang (CHN), 500.9; 2. Mingyang Wu/Buhan Song (CHN), 500.6; 3. Anastasia Galashina/Vladimir Maslennikov (RUS), 434.2; 4. Laura-Georgeta Coman/Alin George Moldoveanu (ROU), 390.5; 5. Isabella Straub/Maximillian Dallinger (GER), 346.9.