The 26-year old Ukrainian shooter finished on the highest step of the podium with 2.5 points of advantage on the other finalists, securing her second ISSF Cup nine year after her first victory in 2003.
The 2004 Olympic Champion Olena Kostevich of Ukraine won the 10m Air Rifle Pistol Women event, today, at the ISSF World Cup Final in Wroclaw, Poland.
The 26-year old shooter, currently ranked fifth in the world, made it to the final match in the lead with 389 points, and secured the brightest medal with a total of 486.0 points, after scoring 99.5 points in the medal match.
Kostevich has been a true protagonist of this year’s ISSF World Cup Series, winning the Fort Benning’s Stage, and finishing on the podium in Changwon and Sydney. It’s also not the first time that the young Ukrainian shooter wins the ISSF World Cup Final: she had indeed secured the Cup also in 2003, one year before winning the Olympics. Is that a sign, with ten months to go to the 2012 Games in London?
The Silver medal went to China’s Sun Qi, who won the battle for the podium outdoing the title defender – the 2010 World Cup Final winner Kira Klimova of Russia – the reigning World Champion (Zorana Arunovic of Serbia) and the expert Australian Lalita Yauhleuskaya.
Sun walked into the final match in third place with 386 qualification points. Then, during the round, she overtook Russia’s Klimova by shooting 100.0 points, finishing on the second step of the podium with a total score of 486.0 points.
Australia’s Lalita Yauhleuskaya took the Bronze after shooting today’s highest final. Starting-off the match in seventh place with 383 points, the 47-year old pistol shooter climbed up to the podium placements by scoring 100.9 points.
To finish upon the podium, Yauhleuskaya beat the reigning world champion and current #1 in the world Zorana Arunovic of Serbia by 0.1 points. Arunovic finished indeed in fourth with a total score of 483.8 points. Following her, the title defender, the 2010 ISSF World Cup Final winner Kira Klimova, closed the match in fifth with 483.3 points.