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Finals 25m Pistol Women

Zhang beat Salukvadze in a breathtaking 25m Pistol Women Gold medal match

ISSF World Cup Rifle / Pistol / Shotgun · Granada, ESP

The 24-year old Chinese shooter beat the 1988 Olympic Champion Salukvadze at the photo-finish, after a close neck and neck. Salukvadze, 44, had won her last ISSF world cup stage medal in 2010.

Zhang Jingjing of the People's Republic of China won the 25m Pistol Women event at the 2013 ISSF World Cup in Rifle, Pistol and Shotgun event in Granada, Spain.

 

The 24-year old Chinese shooter comes back atop of an ISSF World Cup podium one month after winning a Silver medal at the Munich's world cup stage.


Zhang outdid the 1988 Olympic Champion of Georgia, Nino Salukvadze, 44, in a spectacular Gold medal match. Both the two athletes scored 15 hits during the semi-final, and then kept on shooting shoulder and shoulder right to the medal decision.

 

 

Following the new ISSF rules, during the medal match – a duel for the medal – the athlete who wins each series gets two points, while a draw assigns one point each. The first shooter who reaches seven points wins the medal match.

 

Zhang and Salukvadze won three series each (collecting 6 points each), and then tied in the seventh series. The last, breathtaking series decided the match in favor of Zhang, who collected the Gold with a medal match score of 9 points.

 

Salukvadze finished in second, pocketing Silver with 7 points. The three-time Olympic medallist, had won her last world cup stage medal (a bronze) in Belgrade, in 2010. The pistol shooter, who's currently serving as the Vice-President of the Georgian NOC, will try to secure an Olympic Quota Place for the 2016 Games in Rio, here in Granada, next year.

 

The Bronze medal match was won by Serbia's 26-year old shooter Zorana Arunovic, who beat the 1992 and 2008 Olympic Bronze medallist Munkhbayar Dorjsuren of Germany 8 to 0 points.

 

The second German finalist, Monika Karsch, ended up in fifth place after the semi-final with 13 hits. She was followed by 1988 Olympic Silver medallist of Serbia Jasna Secaric (sixth with 12 hits), by the home shooter Sonia Franquet (seventh with 10 hits) and by India's Rahi Sarnobat (eighth with 8 hits).


Marco Dalla Dea

 

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