After four years absence from the Running Target-scene, Lukasz Czapla from Poland won the gold in the 50m regular event at the ISSF World Championship Running Target in Sweden. Emil Martinsson, Sweden, won his second individual silver, passing through a shoot off against Dmitry Romanov from Russian Federation.
After 295 points in the slow runs and being four points after the leader, Lukasz Czapla still felt that he had a medal chance before the fast runs on Tuesday.
“I had lost a lot of points yesterday, but I thought I still had chance for medal so I tried my best to organize my mind and to do my work today, and I did!” He said.
In the fast runs Czapla shot 296, and with a total of 591 he was in the lead until there was only one shooter left – yesterday’s runner up Emil Martinsson. Martinsson had to shoot 293 to reach shoot-off about the gold, but he scored 292 and the gold went to Czapla from Poland. This was Lukasz Czapla's fifth individual senior World Championship gold. In 2006 he became world champion in three out of four Running Target events, and he won one gold in 2008. After that he quit shooting Running Target, but found the passion again earlier this year and decided about three months ago to enter the world championship.
“It's a miracle! I am really happy. I didn't expect to take gold like this, it was such a long break since 2008, so I am really glad. But today the shooting was good, I had control.” Czapla commented.
“I spoke to my wife this morning, because it is her birthday today, and I ask what she wanted for her birthday and she said a medal.” A nice way to celebrate.
Second silver for Swedish Martinsson
The home shooter, Sweden’s Martinsson, got his second individual silver in the 50 meter event. On beforehand he thought that at least 590 would be needed for medals, and he was right. His 590 was enough for shoot-off for silver.
“I should have shot more points. A score of 590 points is in the lower edge. Today I lost points. One eight in the first round and a total score of 96 in that series was not the best, I wasn't focused then.” He said.
Dmitry Romanov from Russian Federation tied him with 390 points and started the shoot-off, scoring 18 points out of two shots. Martinsson followed and started off by shooting a 9-point shot, but with a 10 marked in the final shot he eventually pocketed the Silver.
Russian gold in the team event
In the individual competition Dmitry Romanov ended up on third place, Maxim Stepanov in fourth place and Mikhail Azarenko in 7th place. With an overall score of 1762 points the three teammates won the teams’ Gold medal, 10 point ahead of the Silver medalists from Sweden. Bronze went to Ukraine with an overall score of 1747 points.