People’s Republic of China’s Yang Haoran ruled the men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions final in Munich (GER), securing the first gold medal of his bright career in this event. The 22-year-old Chinese shooter, in fact, had previously won seven ISSF gold medals between World Cups, World Cup Finals and World Championships. All in the Air Rifle event.
At the Olympia Schießanlage, Yang ruled the 3 Positions event from the very first series, starting off with three great rounds in the kneeling position — where he scored a total of 156.8 points — and then shooting with great consistency also in the following prone position.
After 30 shots, Yang had a 1.6-point advantage on Russian Federation’s Sergey Kamenskiy, a gap that the Chinese shooter increased to 1.7 after the first two standing series.
Along the decisive elimination phase, Yang fired three times in the 10th ring, successfully defending the top position and pocketing the brightest medal with the score of 465.3 points: a new World Record in this event. His 30-year-old Russian rival, instead, closed with 463.4 points placing 2nd and winning his fourth World Cup medal in this event.
“I’m extremely happy that I finally won my first gold in the 3 Positions event,” said Yang, who also wrote a new Qualification World Record in the elimination phase with 1187 points. “It’s been such a pleasure to compete along these experienced and talented shooters”
The podium was completed by Italy’s Marco De Nicolo (41) — 3rd with 447. 7 points — who preceded Serbia’s 33-year-old Milutin Stefanovic, Poland’s 28-year-old Tomasz Bartnik and Norway’s 20-year-old Henrik Larsen: Stefanovic placed 4th with 437.0 points, Bartnik took 5th place with 426.4, and Larsen finished in 6th position with 414.6 points.
At the 40th-shot mark, the two athletes standing at the bottom of the table were eliminated: Croatia’s 30-year-old Petar Gorsa — who previously entered the match with the highest qualification score — placed 7th with 404.7 points, while Hungary’s experienced shooter Peter Sidi (39) took 8th position with 403.8.
The ISSF World Cup Stage 4 in Munich will continue tomorrow with the 10m Air Rifle Men final, scheduled at 1:15 pm (UTC+2:00).
The final will be streamed live on the ISSF website, on the Federation’s Livestream channel and on its official Facebook page.
Live results, news and updates will be available on www.issf-sports.org and on all ISSF social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Weibo and Youku.