The US team celebrated their first Gold medal at the 2015 ISSF Rifle and Pistol World Cup in Fort Benning, today, as Michael Mcphail climbed atop of the 50m Rifle Prone Men podium after shooting a great match.
The 33-year old shooter, ranked 15th in the world in this event, scored 208.8 points in the final to beat Norway's Ole Kristian Bryhn (26), who ended up in second place with 206.3 points.
During the qualifications, the American athlete marked an extreme score of 631.9 points, just 0.4 points shy of equalling the current world record of 632.3 points, established by Russia's Sergey Kamenskiy at the 2014 ISSF World Championship in Granada, Spain.
“It's great! It's hard place for me to shoot just because the expectations are so high because it is my home turf.” Said Mcphail, who had won his last and only world cup gold medal back in 2010, in Belgrade, Serbia.
“The range we shot the qualifications on is the range were I shoot pretty much every day. But the final range is new, and I would like to thank the USAMU guys who have been working hard to set it up right in time for this competition in the last weeks.” He added, talking about Fort Benning's new final range.
Following him throughout the qualifications and the final, a number of friends, colleagues and teammates supported him right to the last shot. “I could hear the supporters during the final.” Mcphail said. “You're down there with your hear plugs and everything, but you can still feel that, which is good!”.
Along with the Gold medal, Mcphail also collected a Rio 2016 Olympic Quota place, the second for the American team in this event, as Matthew Emmons had already claimed a pass for Brazil at the first rifle and pistol world cup match of the season, in Changwon, Korea.
The road to Rio is still long, though. “From here I will go to Munich for the next world cup stage, in a couple of weeks.” Said today's winner. “I will shoot that, and then we still have to qualify for the last world cup match in Gabala and for the Pan American Games.”
As Silver medallist Ole Kristian Bryhn had already secured a quota in Changwon, the second Olympic pass went to the Bronze medallist, India's Gagan Narang (32), who placed in third with 185.8 points, leaving Croatia's first-time finalist Bojan Durkovic (25) in fourth with 165.6 points.
“It has been a hard work for me, because I didn't do that well in air rifle event lately, so we had to change our strategy a little bit.” Said Narang, the 2012 Olympic air rifle bronze medallist.
“I decided to concentrate on the prone event, as I did not make it into the Commonwealth and Asian Games teams in air rifle. It has been tough as I had to work a lot on my position, but luckily today all fell in place and I am really happy that I clinched the quota place for my country and a medal.”
“I have a long road to Rio ahead, but I am looking forward to it, and I am working to come back also in the air rifle event. That's my favourite discipline.” The Indian athlete concluded.
Following the medals contenders, Ukraine's 47-year old two-time Olympian Yuriy Sukhorukov took the fifth place with 145.1 points, preceding France's Cyril Graff (34), sixth with 123.5 points. Hou Kai of the People's Republic of China (30) and the 2004 Olympic Champion Matthew Emmons of USA (34) followed them in seventh and eighth place with 102.8 and 81.8 points, respectively.