The title defender - the 2010 World Cup Final Winner Sergei Martynov of Belarus - won today’s 50m Rifle Prone Men event at the ISSF World Cup Final, held in Wroclaw (POL) from the 18th through the 24th of September.
43-year old Martynov – a two-time Olympic bronze and a 24-time world cup medallist - confirmed to be the best Prone shooter of the world, today, by winning with ease a difficult final match.
Qualified with 599 points, Martynov secured the brightest medal by scoring 103.8 points throughout the 10-shot final, always shooting in the tenth ring.
The Belarusian shooter climbed upon on the highest step of the podium with an overall score of 702.8 points, leaving his closest opponent – USA’s Eric Uptagraft – one point behind him.
Nobody has been performing better than Martynov, in the last seasons. The world record holder won indeed the 2010 ISSF World Championship (his second title in a row), becoming the first Belarusian athlete to qualify for the 2012 Olympics in London. Then he won last year’s World Cup Final, and ruled the 2011 ISSF World Cup Series by winning the Munich’s stage and by finishing in second at the Sydney’s stage.
Winning today’s Cup, Martynov saved his leadership on the world ranking, and finished atop of the list of the favourites for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, where he will try to secure the only Gold missing from his medal showcase.
Silver medal to Uptagraft, Bronze to the home rookie
Today’s World Cup Final Silver medal went to Eric Uptagraft – the American shooter currently ranked 2nd in the world - who finished in second with a total score of 701.8 points, after qualifying for the final with 599 points and scoring 102.8 points during the medal match. Uptagraft had won the 2005 ISSF World Cup Final in Munich, and finished on the third step of the podium in 2003, in Milan.
The Bronze medal went to the home shooter Sebastian Rabalski, a 20-year athlete who started competing in the frame of the ISSF World Cup this year, in Munich. Qualified to compete in the World Cup Final thanks to a wild card, the young finalist benefitted of the home court advantage, finishing on the podium with 699.4 (596+103.4) points after a great final.
France’s Cyrill Graft (31) closed the match in fourth place with 699.2 (595+104.2) points, followed in fifth by Switzerland’s Marcel Buerge, who ended up with a total score of 699.1 (596+103.1) points.
The Chinese finalist Wang Weiyi eventually placed in sixth with 699.0 (595+104.0) points, preceding Germany’s Henri Junghaenel, seventh with 699.0 (597+102.0) points.
The shooter who marked today’s highest score in the final, Serbia’s Nemanja Mirosavljev, closed the match in eighth and last place, due to a lower qualification score, with a total of 698.4 (594+104.4) points.