Two events were staged at the 2014 ISSF World Cup Final in Gabala, Azerbaijan, today: the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Women and the 50m Pistol Men finals.
The last shot decided the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Women event final. The title defender, Italy's Petra Zublasing, led the match through most of the Standing position, but then shot a frustrating 8.5-point last shot, sliding down in second and leaving the Gold medal to Croatia's Snjezana Pejcic.
Pejcic, who qualified for this World Cup Final by winning a World Championship Silver medal in Granada one month ago, closed the match with 460.2 points, winning her first ISSF World Cup Final Gold medal ever. Zublasing was awarded the Silver medal with 459.8 points. The Bronze medal went to Chang Jing of the People's Republic of China, who finished on the podium with 450.0 points.
At the following 50m Pistol Men final, it was Wang Zhiwei of the People's Republic of China who clinched the Gold medal, finishing atop of the podium with a final score of 195.8 points. The Chinese shooter led the match since the first shots, and gave few chances to Japan's Tomoyuki Matsuda, who ended up in second place with 194.8 points. The second Chinese finalist, the 2008 Olympic Champion Pang Wei, followed them in third place with 170.1 points.
The Skeet Women final, which was scheduled to take place at 4.30 PM this afternoon, has been postponed to tomorrow, 27 October, at 9.30 AM, due to the weather conditions. The fog reduced indeed the visibility down to a few meters, and the ISSF Technical Delegate decided to conduct the competition tomorrow morning. In spite of the fog, the qualification was conducted regularly. USA's Haley Dunn equalled the current world record with 74 hits out of 75 targets, and she will compete in the final against Danka Bartekova of Slovakia (73 hits), Diana Bacosi of Italy and Albina Shakirova of the Russian Federation (71 hits), Chiara Cainero of Italy (71 hits) and Wei Meng of the People's Republic of China (69 hits + 2).
Tomorrow is the closing day of the 2014 ISSF World Cup Final. Next to the Skeet Women final, the 50m Rifle Prone and the Skeet Men finals will be conducted at 11.45 AM and 3.00 PM. Follow the matches on www.issf-sports.org