A French derby characterized the men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol final in Guadalajara (MEX), where the first stage of the 2018 ISSF World Cup Series will take place until March 11th.
26-year-old Clement Bessaguet and 22-year-old Jean Quiquampoix battled for most part of the match, trading places three times before Bessaguet emerged as the gold medal winner with 29 hits.
Quiquampoix — silver medalist in this event at Rio 2016 — closed his match with a disappointing 2-hit series, finishing with 28 hits and securing the fifth World Cup medal of his career.
Differently from what happened at the 2016 Olympics, Quiquampoix preceded Germany’s Christian Reitz — the reigning Olympic Champion — who took bronze with 24 hits. It’s the second World Cup medal won by the German 30-year-old in Guadalajara, who also took silver five days ago in the men’s 10m Air Pistol event.
Despite placing all of its three participants in the final, the People’s Republic of China missed the podium with all of them taking 4th, 5th and 6th position.
28-year-old Li Yuehong — bronze medalist at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, who previously signed the highest qualification score with 586 points — took 4th place with 20 hits, followed by 21-year-old Lin Junmin, who placed 5th with 6 hits in his second World Cup participation.
The 6th place was then taken by first-time participant Yao Zhaonan (22) with 11 hits.
Medal standings after 11 out of 15 events
| Rank | Nation | Individual | Team | Total | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | Silver | Bronze | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total | ||
| 1 | IND |
2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 8 | |
| 2 | CHN |
1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | |
| 3 | FRA |
1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | ||
| 4 | ROU |
1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||
| 5 | USA |
1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| 6 | FIN |
1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||
| 7 | HUN |
1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| 7 | LUX |
1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| 9 | GER |
1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | ||||
| 10 | AUS |
1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| 10 | AUT |
1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| 10 | ITA |
1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| 10 | MEX |
1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| 8 | 8 | 8 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 33 | ||
The ISSF World Cup Stage 1 in Guadalajara (MEX) will continue on Saturday with three more finals: the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Men, scheduled at 12:45 pm (UTC-6:00), the 25m Pistol Women, scheduled at 2:30 pm, and the Skeet Women, taking place at 5:00 pm.
All finals will be streamed live on the ISSF website, on the Federation’s Livestream channel, on its official Facebook page and on the Olympic Channel.
Live results of the competition, news and updates will be available on www.issf-sports.org and on all ISSF social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Weibo and Youku.