He didn't like shooting, but his mother wanted him to. So she started paying him
For Pavlo Korostylov, a 16-year-old shooter from Ukraine, today's 10m Air Pistol event in Munich was his first World Cup final as a Senior. Still, he took third place and made it to the podium. “For me it is normal,” he said. “I like to win.”
Earlier this season, Korostylov came first at the European Championship in Moscow; he was a European Championship medallist also in Osijek (gold and bronze, 2013), Odense (bronze, 2013) and Bologna (bronze, 2012) – always competing as a Junior.
Pavlo's career looks bright and sharp, but – were it not for money and family – it would never have started. “When I first was at the range, 7 years ago, I didn't like it,” he told us. “But my mother wanted me to shoot [She's a pistol coach], so from then on she would just pay me each time I'd go training or for a match.” During a Rapid Fire event, he recounted, he suddenly started walking towards the audience; the last series was about to begin, and his mother owed him some money to keep him going.
Fortunately for his family's pockets, Korostylov soon changed his mind about the sport. He decided he could do it without asking his parents for such a kind of reward. After this expensive stage, Pavlo's mother could be happy about her son and the completed shooting family; indeed – other than him and his mother – his sister Julia is a shooter and his father was in the Soviet Union Team for Pistol.
Alexander Kaminskyy, Korostylov's coach, has good hope that his pupil will be successful at the next Olympic Games. “Remember Kanstantsin Lukashyk?”, asks Mr. Kaminskyy. “He won in Barcelona [a 50m Pistol gold medal for Belarus at the 1992 Olympics]. And he was 16.”
In Rio de Janeiro, Korostylov will be 18. Mr. Kaminskyy, a 3-time olympian, is confident (“He can do it, it's possible”). Pavlo's mother, though, might be wondering: How much money will he be asking as a reward for an Olympic gold?