Day-1 of the 2015 ISSF Rifle and Pistol World Cup held in Fort Benning, USA, continued with the 25m Pistol Women final, conducted at the brand new finals' hall of the USAMU shooting venue.
Bulgaria's Antoaneta Boneva (29) – who arrived here in Fort Benning after winning a world cup Bronze in Changwon - led the semi-final with 18 hits. But tables turned in the Gold medal match, where she met Beijing 2008's Olympic Silver medallist Otryad Gundegmaa of Mongolia (36).
The Mongolian shooter, who had placed in second at the end if the semi-final with 17 hits, took the lead of the medal match after the second series, and shot her way to the highest step of the podium with a net score of 7 points to Boneva's 1.
Otryad, ranked second in the world in this event, had already secured a world cup gold and a Rio 2016 Quota place at the first world cup stage of the season, in Changwon, Korea, in April. Therefore, the first of the two Olympic quota places up for grabs at today's final went to Silver medallist Boneva.
The Bronze medal went to the reigning World Champion, Zhang Jingjing of the People's Republic of China (26), who beat the 2014 Junior world champion Mathilde Lamolle (18) of France, ranked 88th in the world and competing in her first world cup final round. Zhang left few chances to her young opponents, scoring 7 points to Lamolle's 1 in the medal match to step onto Fort Benning's podium. Lamolle secured the second Rio 2016 Quota place assigned by the ISSF today.
Zhang added another medal to her collection, confirming to be one of the most favourites athletes on the road leading to Rio de Janeiro. Ranked first in the world, Zhang has excellent statistics on her side: out of 20 participations in ISSF sanctioned international events since 2010, she collected 13 medals, including all major titles: the 2013 World Cup Final, the 2014 Asian Games and the 2014 World Championship. She's never participated in the Olympics, but after winning a quota place at last year's ISSF world championship, it's hard to believe that she wouldn't make the Chinese Olympic team for Rio. And, with those stats, she's going to be the athlete to beat there.
Before the medal matches, the semi-final had cut out four shooters: the 2012 Olympic silver medallist Olena Kostevych of Ukraine (30) and Switzerland's Hedi Diethelm Gerber (46), who placed in fifth and sixth with 15 hits each, while London 2012 Olympic champion Kim Jangmi of South Korea (22) and Germany's two-time Olympic bronze medallist Munkhbayar Dorjsuren (49), who closed the match in seventh and eighth place with 12 hits each.
Over 600 athletes representing 76 nations arrived here in Fort Benning to participate in the 10 Olympic rifle and pistol events, trying to secure one of the 24 Rio 2016 Olympic Quota places up for grabs during the event. They will compete at the well known shooting range of Fort Benning, which has been expanded this year with the construction of a brand new finals' hall.
The competition will continue tomorrow, with the 50m Pistol Men final assigning the first medals at 12.00, and 10m Air Rifle Women final following up at 14.45 (GMT-4). Watch the finals live at www.issf-sports.org