The 24-year old shooter won his first Gold in this event on the lines of the Royal Artillery Barracks venue, beating USA’s Matthew Emmons of almost 10 points. Ukraine’s Kulish finished in third winning the Bronze.
Italy’s Niccolò “Nicco” Campriani won the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Men Final, the closing match of the 2012 ISSF World Cup in London, a pre-Olympic test event conducted when only 3 months are left to go before the Games.
The Italian sharpshooter made it to the final with six points of advantage on his followers, a gap which turned out to be impossible to be filled by the Silver medallist, the USA’s Olympic multi-medallist Matthew Emmons.
Campriani walked into the match with a qualification score of 1179 points, and in spite of shooting a bad 7.7 he closed the round with 99.2 points in the final, and an overall golden score of 1278.2 points.
“It has been too cold here. This range is made for summer, but we got to shoot in the middle of these cold and raining day. It has been extremely uncomfortable, somebody could not even finish his round and had to leave because it was too cold to stand there for hours…” The Italian shooter Campriani commented after his victory.
“Of course I am happy of my result. I have been doing a lot of training this year. I have been training with Matthew Emmons in the US, and I found out that I like the 50m Rifle 3 Positions event more than the Air Rifle” He said.
“I found this event more interesting, you have to think and work more on it, to cope with the wind and the positions, than in Air Rifle.” Campriani concluded.
The 24-year old student form Florence had never won an ISSF World Cup Gold medal in this event. Campriani had finished in the spotlights as 10m Air Rifle winner at the 2010 ISSF World Championship in Munich, when he became the first sportsman to qualify for the Olympics among all the sports.
USA’s Matthew Emmons, the 2004 Rifle Prone Olympic Champion, finished in second with an overall score of 1268.7 points. After qualifying for the final match with 1173, he shot 95.7 points in the final, securing the Silver medal.
Today’s Bronze went to Serhiy Kulish, who pocketed the medal at the last shot with a total score of 1268.2 points. Closing his match with a 10.3, he overtook Norway’s Ole Kristian Bryhn, who finished the round with an 8.3 and landed in fifth place. At the same time, Germany’s 41-year old expert Maik Echkard climbed up from the eighth place to finish in forth with 1267.0 points, after shooting today’s highest score in the final, 101.0 points.