Serbia’s Andrija Zlatic won today’s 10m Air Pistol Men event at the 2011 ISSF Rifle & Pistol World Cup in Changwon, Korea, beating the home shooter Lee.
The 33-year old Pistol shooter climbed from the fourth place he had on the final’s start list by firing 100.9 points throughout the ten-shot final. Zlatic landed on the highest step of the podium with a total score of 688.9 points, securing the Gold medal with a narrow margin of eight tenths of advantage on his followers.
“This is my first World Cup medal ever, I am extremely happy.” The Serbian athlete said right after the match. Competing since 1990 and ranked second in the World in this event, Zlatic had indeed never placed better than fifth in an ISSF World Cup, before.
“I had been winning medals at the World and European Championship, but I had never found my way to an ISSF World Cup podium. I would say I am really satisfied!” Zlatic added, who had won an ISSF World Championship Silver medal last August in Munich.
Climbing in the lead, Zlatic disappointed the home shooter, Korea’s Lee Daemyung, who had started the match in first place after qualification rounds with 589 points. After firing a 9.3 and a 9.2 on his second and third final shots, the 22-year old Korean shooter landed in second place, pocketing the Silver medal with a total score of 688.1 points.
Lee had to fight to get on the second step of the podium. Since the first shots, he fought neck and neck against Ukraine’s Olympian Oleg Omelchuk. The 27-year old Ukrainian athlete held the second place right to the tenth and last shot, when he fired a frustrating 9.8 to Lee’s 10.3, finishing then in third place with a total of 687.9 points and the Bronze medal.
As the other finalists had already secured an Olympic Quota Place before, today’s 3 Olympic Quota Places went to France’s Walter Lapeyre, fifth with a total score of 686.3 points, to Serbia’s Dimitrije Grigic, eighth with 683.4 points and to the 1992 Olympic Champion of Barcelona Kanstantsin Lukashyk of Belarus, ninth with 584 points.