USA’s Michael McPhail, 34, sealed the 2016 season by finishing atop the ISSF World Cup Final podium, as he won today’s 50m Rifle Prone Men event in Bologna, defending the title he had won one year ago in Munich (GER).
His final score of 209.1 points turned out to be unreachable for Denmark’s Torben Grimmel, the 2000 Olympic silver medalist who dominated this year’s world cup series by winning three stages out of four. Grimmel scored 208.5 points, claiming Silver ahead of USA’s Matthew Emmons, Bronze with 187.2 points.
“For me the 2016 season has been kind of bitter-sweet,” McPhail said after today’s podium ceremony. He had walked into Rio 2016 as one of the favorites, but then closed his Olympic match in 19th place. “It’s good to win this title. But this is an Olympic year. At the Games, in Prone shooting, there’s only one guy that’s happy, for everybody else it’s a disappointment. You train for the one match, and it doesn’t really matter if you win everything else.”
“Now I will get ready for the next year. I would like to shoot the ISSF World Cup in Munich in 2017, if I qualify. But after that I don’t really have any major plan,” concluded today’s winner.
Serbia’s Stevan Pletikosic, the Olympic Bronze medalist of Barcelona 1992, took the 4th place with 165.1 points, finishing ahead of the Rio 2016 Bronze medal winner Kirill Grigoryan of the Russian Federation, who scored 144.3 points to close the final in 5th place.
Bojan Durkovic of Croatia followed them in 6th place with 122.9 points. Kenneth Parr of Great Britain and Warren Potent of Australia were the first two athletes to be eliminated, placing in 7th and 8th with 101.6 and 81.1 points, respectively.
54-year old Potent, the Olympic Bronze medalist of Beijing 2008, announced his retirement at the end of the competition. After spending 36 years in the sport, he leaves the shooting lines ranked 9th in the world, with a world championship gold medal around his neck (won in 2014), three Oceania titles (2005, 2011, 2013), a world cup title (2008) and an impressive tally of 12 world cup podiums.
The 2016 ISSF Rifle and Pistol World Cup Final in Bologna, Italy, continues tomorrow with two medal events, the 25m Pistol Women event and the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Men, scheduled at 15.30 and 16.45 (UTC+2), respectively. Follow the matches live at www.issf-sports.org