Matsuda Tomoyuki is the first Japanese athlete to qualify for the London 2012 Olympic Games. The 34-year old Police Officer form Yokohama won today’s 50m Pistol competition at the 50th ISSF World Championship in all shooting events taking place in Munich, the first Olympic qualifier event for the 2012 Games.
Four Olympic Quota Places, the pass for the Games, had to be assigned at today’s 50m Pistol Men final round. Matsuda, a right-handed pistol shooter competing internationally since 2002, entered the final match in the lead with a qualification score of 572 points, and a consistent advantage of four points on his followers.
Keeping his Korean opponent Lee Daemyung behind him throughout the ten-shot competition, Matsuda managed his advantage scoring 97.7 points, and finished on the highest step of the podium with a total score of 669.7 points.
The Japanese shooter celebrated with his teammates his best placement ever in a world-level competition. Matsuda had indeed finished in 36th at the last ISSF World Championship in 2006, and eighth at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
Korea’s Lee Daemyung eventually finished in second place, securing the Silver medal and the second Olympic Quota Place to be awarded in this match. The 21-year old Korean shooter, who had finished in the spotlight also in 2006 by winning Silver at the 10m Air Pistol Junior competition, finished on today’s podium after playing a great final match. Qualified in fourth place with 567 points, he climbed up the scoreboard by shooting 98.2 points in the final, eventually grabbing the Silver and the quota with a total of 665.2 points.
The Bronze went to Kazakhstan’s Vyacheslav Podlesny, who secured the first 2012 Olympic Quota place for his country with an odd-defying final round. The 32-year old shooter, ranked 73 in the world in this event, had never participated in a World Championship before, and his best placement in career had been a 42nd place at this year’s World Cup stage in Fort Benning, USA. By entering today’s final in second place with 568 points and then finishing on the podium with 662.1 points, he surprised everybody, even himself, as he said.
The fourth and last Olympic Quota place to be awarded in this match went to Serbia’s Andrija Zlatic, 32, who closed the match in fourth with 659.6 (567+92.6).
World’s rank leader, Daryl Szarenski of USA, did not grab a quota, finishing in sixth place behind Russia’s Vladimir Gontcharov with a total score of 655.0 (562+93.0) points. The 42-year old American shooter, who had led this year’s World Cup series in pistol events, shot twice in the eighth and once in the seventh ring during the final, closing the round more then 4 points far from the Quota Place. China’s Zhang Tian closed in sixth behind him with 652.6 points after shooting an frustrating 6.0-shot, while the 2008 Ukraininan Olympic Finalist Oleg Omelcuk did not keep up with the pressure and finished in eighth and last place with a total of 652.3 points, after firing today’s lower final score, 89.3 points.