Bulgaria and Uzbekistan were the first-ever winner of the new 10m Air Pistol Mixed International Teams event, today at the Nanjing Youth Olympics, as Lidia Nencheva and Vladimir Svechnikov teamed-up to beat Singapore's Xiu Yi Teh and Egypt's Ahmed Mohamed by 10-5 in the gold medal match. Latvia's Agate Rasmane and Guatemala's Wilmar Madrid took the bronze, as they beat Chinese Taipei's Chung and Armenia's Igityan by 10-8 in the third-place final. This was a new competition format (find out more). Nencheva and Svechnikov were in the same team based on their final results in the individual air pistol event. Each team was made up of a man and a woman of different nationalities.
The day had started with the semifinals. There, Nencheva and Svechnikov overcame Chung and Igityan (10-8), and Teh and Mohamed had the best of Madrid and Rasmane in a very close match (10-9).
In the previous stages, the two gold medallists had also defeated France's Edouard Dortomb and Norway's Eline Sara Stamnestro (10-7) in the Round of Sixteen, as well as Jose Ceper of Slovenia and Yashaswini Singh Jeswal of India (10-5) to enter the semifinal.
The winning couple went easily through the last duel, Mohamed and Teh being left to zero till the fifth round.
“I feel that this medal will bring an honor to my country,” Svechnikov said. “When I finished I felt that I was the best shooter here and the best in the world and I’m proud of my country.”
Svechnikov was glad about having Nencheva as a partner. “She is a good teammate,” he said. “I like her, she’s smart and she shot very well.”
Nencheva was also satisfied with her teammate. “I’m very happy that I got him [Svechnikov] in a fantastic team,” she said, before thanking her personal trainer who “wasn't able to attend the Youth Olympics.”
Even though the pressure was shared among two shooters, still it was there. “It was quite difficult, at first,” Svechnikov said. “But we controlled our emotions, calmed down, and showed the world that we are the best ones.” He dedicated the triumph to his country, as he “wanted to show everybody that [they] could achieve this milestone.”
The new event pleased Svechnikov, who praised it and expressed a desire to see it again. “It was really fascinating and very hard,” he said. “It's something new and interesting. I hope this will be applied [also] to future competitions.”
Silver medallist Teh appreciated the format as well. “I think [it] is good,” she said. “Definitely [I have less pressure] because I have someone that I can shoot with. If you shoot a low and he shoots a high, you maybe can get a point.”
“I hope that next time I still will be in a team with him,” she finally said referring to Mohamed.
Find here the full results of the event: PDF
The rifle mixed event, also the last shooting event at Nanjing 2014, will be tomorrow, Friday 22 August, at 11 AM China Standard Time (UTC+08:00). Find us on Twitter (@ISSF_Shooting) and follow our live coverage.