25m Pistol Women – Russia’s Klimova grabbed Gold by 0.1

“You couldn’t put more drama into a Sport Pistol Final” said a German spectator after today’s 25m Pistol Women final at the ISSF World Championship in all shooting events taking place in Munich, Germany. Drama has indeed been the main ingredient of this match, decided at the last shot, on the hedge of tenths.

What happened? The Gold medal, the title and the first Olympic Quota place went to Russia’s Kira Klimova, 27-year old, from Moscow, who won the match with a total score of 788.8 points, after a great final score of 204.8 points.

Kliomova had never won an ISSF Gold medal, before, and she did it in the most spectacular way. After the third competition series, the three shooters who were going to finish on the podium were tied. Klimova, Serbia’s Arunovic and Czech Republic’s Maruskova were all tied in the lead with a score of 736.9 points, fighting neck and neck to secure the brightest medal.

The fourth and last series turned therefore into a shoot-off for the podium placements. Maruskova scored 51.7 points, a great series, but not enough to keep up with the other two contenders. While the Czech shooter sled in third place,  grabbing the Bronze with 788.6 points, both Arunovic and Klimova, incredibly, scored 51.9 points on their last series, finishing tied in first place.

The following shoot-off for Gold, a breathtaking one-series tie-breaker between the two athletes, was decided by 0.1 points, just a few millimetre on the target. Arunovic, shooting faster, totalized 48.9 points dropping down in second place, while Klimova climbed on her first world championship podium with 49.0 shoot-off points.

Five Olympic Quota Places had to be assigned in this event. Since the Silver and the Bronze medallists Zorana Arunovic and Lenka Maruskova, and the Chinese shooter Su Yiling (seventh today) had already secured an Olympic pass in the 10m Air Pistol Women event, all the other finalists were awarded a Quota Place.