ISSF Rifle and Pistol World Cup closed in Fort Benning – Serbia finishes atop of the medals standings

More than 600 athletes coming from 76 countries competed in the 2015 ISSF Rifle and Pistol World Cup held in Fort Benning (USA) – the fifth world cup leg of the season - from the 13th through the 18th of May. They arrived there to compete in the 10 Olympic Rifle and Pistol events, trying to secure one of the 24 Rio 2016 Olympic Quota places, and to collect world cup points. 

Korea’s five-time Olympic medallist Jin Jongoh won the last match of the event, today’s 10m Air Pistol Men final, collecting his second world cup gold back to back. Jin's final score of 202.0 points turned out to be unreachable for today’s Silver medallist, the 2004 Olympic Bronze medallist Vladimir Isakov of Russia, who scored 199.9 points finishing in second place 2.1 points behind the Korean winner. The Bronze medal went to Portugal's 50-year old Joao Costa, a four-time Olympian, who scored 178.4 points, claiming an Olympic pass for Rio.

Earlier today, Kazakhstan's Yuriy Yurkov – ranked 50th in the world – beat world's #2 Zhu Qinan of the People's Republic of China at the last shot of a thrilling 50m Rifle 3 Positions Men event, winning Gold and a Rio 2016 Olympic Quota Place. Yurkov – who had never compete in an ISSF world cup final round before – scored 456.3 points, leaving behind him two Athens 2004’s Olympic Champions: China’s Zhu Qinan - second with 455.3 points – and USA’s Matthew Emmons, third with 445.0 points.

After ten finals conducted in Fort Benning, it was the Serbian team that finished atop of the medals standings table, thanks to the three Gold medals collected by Stefanovic and Arsovic at the 10m Air Rifle Men and Women event, and by Mikec at the 50m Pistol Men competition.

The People’s Republic of China followed in second place, with a total of four medals, including one Gold, two Silver and 1 Bronze medals. The host country, USA, ended up in seventh with 1 Gold (won by Michael Mcphail at the 50m Rifle Prone Men event) and 1 Bronze medal secured by Matthew Emmons at today’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions Men final.

“We are very happy about this world cup event, and especially that we were able to get a new finals hall here in Fort Benning. That makes the difference.” Mr. Gary Anderson - ISSF Vice-President and member of the USA Shooting’s Board of Directors – said after the last final.

“This falls into the ISSF development strategy: to get attractive fields of play, that highlights the athletes and focus the attention on their performances.”

“The quality of this world cup is so much better than all we had before here. We've always been proud of our officials, we think they do a good job and they work really hard, but the new finals hall was the highlight of this competition. Yesterday, a new final world record was scored on the new range, at the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Women final.” Mr. Anderson said, speaking about the new finals hall that was added to the well-known venue of Fort Benning, which hosted 9 different ISSF World Cup Stages since 1994.

The ISSF World Cup Series moves now on to Munich, Germany, where the next world cup leg will be hosted from the 26th of May through the 2nd of June. The first medals will be assigned on the 28th of May, when the 10m Air Rifle Men and Women finals will be held. Follow the next events live on www.issf-sports.org

The medals standing

Records Broken / Equalled

Quota Places by event

Medallists by event