16-year-old of Ukraine Pavlo Korostylov, a bronze medallist at the ISSF World Cup stage in Munich last June, will be the favorite at Men's 10m Air Pistol, the second shooting event of the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games, to take place at the Fangshan Shooting Hall today, 18 August 2014, at 11:15 AM China Standard Time (UTC+08:00). Yesterday, Poland's Nowak won the Women competition in a loud and crowded hall.
Korostylov will make his first appearance at an Olympic event. He will try to make today's debut as lucky as the one he made in Munich a couple of months ago. There, on June 11, he took third place at Men's 10m Air Pistol as he was competing in his first World Cup final as a Senior. He then stepped up to the same podium as four-time World Cup medallist Pablo Carrera of Spain. “For me it is normal,” he had said then. “I like to win.”
Before entering Senior events, Korostylov has been quite successful as a Junior. Back in February this season, he has won gold at the European Championship in Moscow. Last year, he came away from two European Championship editions (ECH), Osijek and Odense, with three medals (one gold and two bronze). In 2012, he was third at ECH in Bologna.
Family is what draw Korostylov into shooting. As he was a child, his mother, a pistol coach, would pay him to go to the range. Once, during a competition, he stopped shooting and started walking towards the audience; he approached his mother and asked her some more change for him to keep going. He then came to doing it without asking money, finally joining the family, as his father and sister are also involved in the sport.
Alexander Kaminskyy, Korostylov's coach and a three-time Olympian, expressed hope over his pupil to win a medal at Rio 2016. Before that, there is Nanjing 2014. Surely, Mr Kaminskyy will be paying attention to today's test.
Learn how to watch Korostylov trying to take over Men's 10m Air Pistol, as well as the other events at Nanjing 2014.