Teenagers Manon Herbulot of France and Norway’s Synnoeve Berg produced breakthrough performances at the ISSF Final Olympic Qualification Championship for Rifle & Pistol in Rio de Janeiro to earn Paris 2024 quota places in 10m air rifle women.
In a hugely encouraging event for the hosts of this summer’s Olympics, Herbulot, (pictured), who turned 17 on March 30, finished second behind her 21-compatriot Oceanne Muller, who had already claimed an Olympic quota place.
The second quota place on offer went to the 16-year-old Norwegian who won the world junior title in this event last year.
In the 10m air rifle men’s final the two Olympic quota places on offer went to winner Lazar Kovacevic of Serbia and third-placed Eduardo Bonazzi of Italy, with the former athlete claiming gold on his last shot.
Herbulot, who competed in her first ISSF World Cup earlier this year in Cairo, finishing 77th in the individual 10m air rifle women event and sixth in the mixed team event, totalled 249.2 points to earn silver behind Muller, who finished on 250.4.
Berg had held second place going into the penultimate elimination round, leading Herbulot by 0.5, but a 9.9 and a 10.2 dropped her a place as her French rival scored 10.7 and 10.3.
Not that it mattered much for this outstanding emerging talent from Norway as she had done enough to secure a precious Paris 2024 place for her country.
She finished one place ahead of her much be-medalled compatriot Jeanette Hegg Duestad, who finished fourth in this event and at the 50m rifle 3 positions at the Tokyo 2020 Games and who had already secured a quota place.
Iran’s Najmeh Khedmati was fifth, one place ahead of Eszter Meszaros of Hungary.
Kovacevic, 26, secured a Paris 2024 spot five months after taking silver in this event at the ISSF World Cup Final in Doha.
Trailing by 0.8 behind Norway's Jon Hermann-Hegg as he went into the final round of two shots, he narrowed the gap by 0.2 after the first, and finished as winner by 249.0 to 248.9 after his concluding 10.5 bettered the 9.8 of his opponent.
Hegg, who earned World Cup Final bronze in the 50m rifle 3 positions in Doha and finished fourth in that event at the Tokyo 2020 Games, already had a quota place.
So the second qualification on offer in this event went to 21-year-old Bonazzi, who thus emulated his compatriot Federico Maldini, who claimed a place for the Paris Olympics in winning the 10m air pistol men event.
Bonazzi, who had claimed the eighth and last qualifying place, showed admirable consistency to finish ahead of Ukraine’s Sviatoslav Hudzyi.
In earlier mixed team competition, gold in the 10m air pistol went to the Turkish pair of Sevval Tarhan and Yusuf Dikec, who beat Ukraine’s Yuliia Isachenko and Oleh Omelchuk 17-13.
Japan’s Satoko Yamada and Seiji Morikawa beat Bulgaria’s Miroslava Mincheva and Samuil Donkov to bronze, 16-6.
In the 10m air rifle equivalent the title went to Norway’s team of Duestad and Hegg, who beat the France 1 pairing of Muller and Lucas-Bernard Kryzs 16-14.
Sweden’s Isabelle Johansson and Marcus Madsen took bronze with a 16-10 win over Paula Grande and Jesus Oviedo of Sweden.
Four more individual finals remain within this competition, each offering two Olympic quota places, with the next up being the 25m pistol women event.
The Championships conclude on Friday with finals in the men’s and women’s 50m rifle 3 positions and the 25m rapid fire pistol men.