By shooting an excellent final of 105.6 points, the 23-year old German shooter moved up in the lead, winning his first world cup Gold and an Olympic Quota Place for Germany. The second Quota went to Austria’s Christian Planer.
Shooting an outstanding average of 10.56 points per shot in the final round, Germany’s Henri Junghaenel won today’s 50m Rifle Prone men medal mach, securing an Olympic Quota Place for his country.
The 23-year old shooter from Breuberg made it to the final in fifth place with 597 points, two points behind the qualification’s leader, Austria’s Christian Planer.
Then, shooting an excellent final score of 105.6 points, he climbed up the scoreboard, ending up in first place with an unmatchable overall score of 702.6 points.
“My final result was quite massive!” Junghaenel said with a smile on his face, right after the last final shot “I don’t now how it happened, but it happened, and it just feels great to win this final!” said the 23-year old, who had never won an ISSF Gold medal, before.
“To win an Olympic Quota Place was the most important goal to achieve, here.” The German shooter commented about winning a pass to London 2012 “I will have to go through national selection matches, but I hope I will make the Olympic team.”
“My next competition? The World Cup in Munich, I will be competing there, in twenty days.” Junghaenel concluded, mentioning Munich’s Olympic range, where he won an ISSF World Cup Final Bronze medal, last year.
The Silver medal was taken by the Belarusian Prone specialist Sergei Martynov, who just turned 43 four days ago. The two-time Olympic Bronze medallist passed through the eliminations with an equalled World Record of 600 out of 600 points, and then made it to the final round in second place with a qualification score of 598 points. Marking 103.1 points in the final, the Belarusian champion landed on the second step of the podium with an overall score of 701.1 points, winning is second World Cup medal of the season after his victory in Changwon.
Just 0.8 behind, the Bronze went to another expert shooter, Serbia’s 41-year old Nemanja Mirosavljev, who closed the round with 700.3 (597+103.3) points, climbing from the sixth place he had on the start list to the third.
At the same time, the qualification’s leader, Austria’s Christian Planer, 36, who had made it to the medal match with 599 points, slid down in sixth place, behind China’s Wang Weiyi and USA’s Eric Uptagrafft.
Marking 100.9 points, Planer ended up the medal match with a total of 699.9 points, not enough to step on the podium, but still a good placement to secure an Olympic Quota Place, a pass to the 2012 Games.
Check the complete results of the match at: http://www.issf-sports.org/xmlresultpage.aspx?cshipid=1179&resultkey=C10000_I_2205110900.1.FR60PR.0
The last final of the 2011 ISSF Rifle and Pistol World Cup in Fort Benning, USA, the 50m Pistol Men, will take place later on this afternoon, at 15.30.