The People’s Republic of China won its third gold medal at the ISSF Junior World Cup in Sydney, as Zhang Changhong ruled the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Men Junior final, adding his name to the ones of Liu Yuqi and Duan Yuwei.
After standing in 2nd place at the end of both the kneeling and prone position, the 18-year-old shooter grabbed the lead with a consistent performance in the decisive standing phase, pocketing the gold medal and scoring 451.6 points in his first final participation in this event.
Alongside him, on the 2nd step of the podium, Finland’s Sebastian Langstrom (19) took silver with 448.0 points, pulverizing the 11th place he obtained at last year’s ISSF Junior World Championship in Suhl (GER). The bronze medal was awarded to Hungary’s Zalan Pekler — also silver medalist in yesterday’s Air Rifle event. The 18-year-old Hungarian first entered the final with the highest qualification score, then sealing 3rd place with the score of 439.4 points.
Zhang’s two teammates Xu Yuannan (17) and Li Xuezhi (20) left the match at the 40th-shot mark, respectively taking 7th place with 389.9 points and 8th place with 387.4.
One shot later, they were followed by India’s 20-year-old Sam George Sajan Christopher Ramesh — participating in his first ISSF competition — who finished in 6th position with 402.5 points.
In 4th place, but way far from the medal positions, Romania’s 19-year-old Dragomir Iordache scored 423.1 points, besting the 6th place he nailed at the ISSF Junior World Cup in Gabala (AZE) in 2016.
Finally, taking 5th place, home favorite Alex Chresten Hoberg (16) of Australia finished with 413.3 points in his first international start ever.
The ISSF Junior World Cup in Sydney will continue tomorrow with three more finals: the 10m Air Pistol Women Junior, taking place at 11:45 am (UTC+11:00), the 10m Air Pistol Men Junior, taking place at 2:00 pm, and the Trap Mixed Team Junior, scheduled at 4:15 pm.
The competition will be streamed live on the ISSF website, on the Federation’s Livestream channel and on its official Facebook page.
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.