On Day 8 of the 1st European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan, Italy’s Petra Zublasing and Russia’s Vitaly Fokeev added their Gold medals to the table, crushing their opponents in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Women and in the Double Trap Men event, respectively.
50m Rifle 3 Positions Women
In today’s first final, Italy’s Petra Zublasing put together an unbelievable performance, earning the Gold medal and besting her closest opponent by 10.1 points.
The Italian athlete, a three-time World Cup Gold medallist in the 3P event, closed the kneeling series in 2nd position behind Scottish 24-year old Jen McIntosh, managing to grab the top spot during the following prone section. During the final standing series, Zublasing left no chances to her seven competitors, concluding with 464.7 points and setting a new Final World Record.
"Of course I'm thinking about Rio 2016. Even the day after the Olympics I already think of the next Olympics.” Zublasing said after the medal ceremony.
"This Gold medal just gives me a lot of confidence because lately I've changed and tried a lot of different materials: the rifle itself, the shoes, other small details. Everything having the Olympics in my mind. Now I know that these changes work for me. That's the difference between the good shooters and the intermediate ones. The good ones manage to find their set-up and they stick to it. I'm going to stick to these new changes from now on, and this gold proves that work just fine for me." She concluded.
French shooter Laurence Brize, 38, finished 2nd with 454.6 points, also earning the only Olympic quota place up for grabs in this event. Austrian 22-year old Olivia Hofmann concluded with 443.2 points, placing 3rd and receiving the Bronze medal.
Following the three medallists, Ivana Maksimovic of Serbia closed in 4th place, Beate Gauss of Germany in 5th, Petra Lustenberger of Switzerland in 6th, Jennifer McIntosh of Great Britain placed 7th and Natalia Kalnysh of Ukraine placed 8th.
"That's just the nature of the 3 positions event really. It doesn't really matter if you're good at one, if you're not that good at all three, you end up at the bottom of the pile.” McIntosh said.
Double Trap Men
In the second and last event of the day, Double Trap Men shooter Vitaly Fokeev bested a surprising Richard Bognar of Hungary in the Gold medal match, while Italy’s Antonino Barillà, the Gold medallist at the World Cup stage in Larnaca two months ago, won the Bronze medal match against Germany’s Andreas Loew.
The same Fokeev, Bognar and Barillà, along with British shooter Steven Scott, qualified for the semifinal with the same score: 142 hits. There, the Hungarian hit a stunning 30-out-of-30 targets, qualifiying for the Gold medal match with Fokeev, who marked 29 hits. The Russian athlete had a 3-points advantage on his rival after seven series of targets, and managed to keep the 1st position until the very last clay pigeon, locking the final with a 29-to-26 score.
"I am very happy because I got a Gold medal from this great competition and Russia got Gold medals two days in a row in shooting. Since the 2006 world championship Gold medal it is the first Gold in a big, great tournament that I have got. It is great to put this one into my collection and look at them every day as much as I can. It is just priceless.” Fokeev declared.
"No one in the final had reached his quota for Rio except for the Italian athlete. That is why it was so hard for me, but luckily I did well and got that ticket for the Olympics for my country.” He concluded.
The Bronze medallist Antonino Barillà, instead, had to wait until his very last target to celebrate the 3rd place, as the final score of the Bronze medal match was 29 to 28 hits.
Great Britain’s Steven Scott, 30, concluded in 5th place after he got eliminated from a shoot-off against Barillà and Loew at the end of the semifinal, while Slovakia’s Hubert Andrzej Olejnik finished in 6th place.
Tweet of the day
Mutual respect between shooter is amazing.
@PetraZublasing you sir, are a legend! I know I told you already but massive congrats for today! You nailed it!