Bulgaria’s Antoaneta Boneva (30) won the 25m Pistol Women event at the ISSF Rifle, Pistol and Shotgun World Cup in Baku, beating Greece’s Anna Korakaki (20) in the gold medal match by 7 to 5 points after six series.
The Bulgarian shooter ranked among the top-3 positions since the first semi-final series, and made it to the medal match with 16 hits after passing through a shoot-off against China’s 2008 Olympic Champion Chen Ying, which she won by 5 to 2 hits.
In the medal duel she met Korakaki, a successful air pistol shooter making it into a Sport Pistol final for the first time in career.
Boneva took an early lead, winning the first two medal match series and gaining 4 points, but then she was caught up by Korakaki, who won series 3 and 4.
Series 5 was a draw, meaning each shooter was awarded 1 points, and it was series 6 that gave the victory to the Bulgarian athlete, who scored 3 hits to Korakaki’s 0, gaining 2 points and therefore reaching the winning score of 7 points.
Korakaki secured her second silver medal in this world cup stage, after the 10m Air Pistol Women’s.
“I am speechless, I thought this medal was never going to come, finally I made it,” said Boneva, who had never won a gold medal in this event before, in spite of participating in 14 world cup final matches in her career since 2006.
“I am preparing for the Games now. After this competition I will keep on training at home, on both the air and the sport pistol events.”
In the Bronze medal match, the reigning Olympic Champion Kim Jangmi of the Republic of Korea (23) beat Beijing’s 2008 Olympic Champion Chen Ying (38) by 8 to 0 points, winning 4 consecutive series with a consistent rhythm. The Korean champion had been missing from an ISSF podium since 2014.
Another Olympic Champion, the Ukraine’s Olena Kostecyvh (31), took the fifth place with 14 hits + 3 hits in the shoot-off after the semi-final, just two days after winning gold at the 10m Air Rifle Women event. Svetlana Medvedeva of the Russian Federation (23), a first-time world cup stage finalist, followed her in sixth place with 13 hits, 1 hit more than Germany’s Stefanie Thurman (34) - seventh with 12 hits. Another first-time finalist, India’s Heena Sidhu (26) closed the match in eighth and last place with 6 hits.