On the second day of the shooting schedule in Baku, Zorana Arunovic and Damir Mikec collected Serbia’s second and third Gold medal of the Games; while the Trap Men title went to Russian Federation’s Alexey Alipov.
10m Air Pistol Women
After notching the Air Rifle Women Gold with Andrea Arsovic yesterday, Serbian shooting team collected its second brightest medal in the 10m Air Pistol Women event, where Zorana Arunovic, the 2010 ISSF World Champion in this event, prevailed over Spain’s Sonia Franquet, the Silver medallist.
The turning point of the final turned out to be the 8th series, where Franquet entered with a 0.5 lead on Arunovic, only to shoot a 9.0 and a 8.8, ending up 2.4 points behind the Serbian shooter who, on the other hand, marked a 10.0 and an excellent 10.7 earning herself the first Air Pistol Women Gold medal ever at the European Games. Arunovic final score was 199.5 points, while Franquet concluded with 196.3.
"I can't say I thought I was going to win this. Whenever you enter the shooting range and competition you hope you can win and do everything you can, but I had certain doubts. My season has been really rocky. I was trying so hard to achieve good scores but couldn't and finally in this competition I gave 150 per cent and am extremely happy I managed to get this gold medal.” Arunovic declared.
"By the fist pumps, you could see it was really important for me to shoot well and to win. I didn't feel confident when I started the final and I was really stressed. When I saw that I had an opportunity to win a medal, and then Gold, I gave everything I can and eventually won it.” She concluded.
The first and only Olympic quota place available in this event went to 3rd placed Viktoria Chaika, 34 of Belarus, who concluded with a final score of 177.4.
Following Chaika, Olena Kostevych of Ukraine placed 4th; Ekaterina Korshunova and Olga Kousnetsova, both of the Russian Federation, placed 5th and 6th respectively; Heidi Diethelm Gerber of Switzerland finished 7th and Sylvia Steiner of Austria concluded 8th.
Trap Men
A few weeks after his wife, Yuliya Alipova, earned a World Cup Bronze medal and an Olympic quota place in the 25m Pistol Women event in Munich, Germany, Alexei Alipov of the Russian Federation finally grabbed his own slot for Rio 2016, winning the Gold medal at the Trap Men final in Baku.
Alipov, the 39-year old 2004 Olympic Champion, bested Slovakia’s Erik Varga, the current World Champion, in the Gold medal match, nailing a perfect final series where he hit all of his 15 targets against Varga’s 14.
"I am so happy because with this win now I can participate to Rio 2016, which is amazing and exciting. I was so nervous before the final because I was up against the World Champion. In the semifinals the referee made a mistake and said another word instead of start, that's why I missed two shots.” Said Alipov.
"I have competed in the Olympic Games and got one gold and a bronze medal so far. Baku 2015 looks like the Olympics as well. Baku is really amazing. I like everything here. Our hotel, the Athletes Village is fantastic with its facilities. I would like to stay and live here for my entire life. I will talk about this idea with my wife.” He concluded with enthusiasm.
At the en of the semifinal, Alipov had to survive a shoot-off against Italy’s Giovanni Pellielo, as they both concluded the round with 13 target hits. Following the loss in the tie-breaker round, Pellielo easily beat Great Britain’s Edward Ling in the Bronze medal match with a final score of 13 to 11.
San Marino’s Manuel Mancini failed to reach the medals zone and concluded the semifinal with 11 hits, the same score as 6th placed Jesus Serrano of Spain.
10m Air Pistol Men
Anything can happen in shooting sport, and the 10m Air Pistol final at Baku 2015 just proved it once again.
Serbia’s Damir Mikec and Portugal’s Joao Costa battled until the very last shot for the first Air Pistol Gold medal in the history of the European Games, coming back form a huge deficit on Slovakia’s Juraj Tuzinsky, who concluded in 3rd place.
Tuzinsky, who placed 15th in this event at London 2012, had a comforting 4.6-points lead on both Costa and Mikec after the 5th series, a lead that slipped to 4.2 on Mikec and 4.1 on Costa after two more shots. On his 7th and 8th series, anyway, the Slovakian missed the 10th ring four times in a row, losing all of his advantage and eventually getting eliminated after a disappointing 8.2 mark.
Mikec and Costa, then, exchanged one last excellent series, with the Serbian athlete prevailing with a final score of 201.8 points against Costa’s 201.5.
"It is a great feeling. When I started my career I always wanted a Games like this. We have the Pan-American Games, Asian, African and Oceania and I was very happy when the European Games finally came and very happy I won a gold medal here.” Said Mikec after the medal ceremony.
"The final was incredible. I was very bad in the beginning. I shot an 8.0 and after I said to myself 'just relax and give your best' and then I started to shoot like I know I can.” He continued. "At the end, the last shot was really incredible. I am very happy that I managed to go all the way from the bottom to the top and win the gold medal. COSTA was shooting before me, so I was listening to the spectators for how they reacted, which was difficult so I tried not to hear.”
And again, on Serbia amazing performance in the first two days of shooting competitions in Baku: "I was joking with my friends that Zorana won the gold medal today and Andrea did yesterday and I said it would be a great shame to destroy the 100 per cent success so I have to get the gold medal."
The only Olympic slot for Rio 2016 up for grabs in this event went to the 2014 Youth Olympic Gold medallist Pavlo Korostylov, 18 of Ukraine, who concluded 5th with a final score of 138.2 points.
Ismail Keles of Turkey finished 4th; Oleh Omelchuck, also from Ukraine, finished 6th; Piotr Daniluk of Poland finished 7th and Luca Tesconi of Italy left the match first, placing 8th.