The 52nd ISSF World Championship in all events in Changwon continued this afternoon with the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team event, where four Olympic quota places were awarded.
Team Russian Federation 1 (Vitalina Batsarashkina and Artem Chernousov) secured the brightest medal with a record score of 488.1 points, shattering the previous record of 487.7 points scored earlier this year by team China (here in Changwon, while competing in an ISSF World Cup, in April).
Artem Chernousov said:
“This shooting range is technically perfect. This is the perfect place to score high results and beat world record.”
Vitalina Batsarashkina added:
“We won two Olympic Quota places and scored a new world record. We couldn’t be happier!”
“We know each other since 2015, and we have been training together a lot. Before coming here in South Korea we spent two weeks in a training camp to fine-tune our preparation.”
“Our plan? Win, win, win. This is just a starting point,” continued Chernousov.
“The quota place goes to the country, not the athletes. We will have to go through selection matches, back home, in Russia, to qualify for the Games.”
The winning team finished atop of the podium with a huge margin of 7.9 points on silver medalists Wang Qian and Wang Meng Yi of the People’s Republic of China, who took the second place with 480.2 points, winning their first medal in this event.
Team Russia and team China secured the four Tokyo 2020 quota places up for grabs at today’s final (one per each team members, for the first two teams). The other teams competing in Tokyo will be formed by double-starter athletes qualified in individual events.
Today’s Bronze medal went to Ukraine, thanks to the 2004 Olympic Champion Olena Kostevych and to the 2008 World Cup winner Oleh Omelchuk, who scored 416.7 points today. They were followed by team Serbia (Zorana Arunovic, Damir Mikec, 376.6 points) and by team Spain (Sonia Franquet, Pablo Carrera, 331.6 points).
The ISSF World Championship will continue tomorrow, with several events and four medal matches on the schedule: the men’s and women’s 10m Air Rifle finals at 12.15 and 14.15 (GMT+9), the women’s Trap Junior final at 15.30, and the men’s Trap final at 16.50.
Footage of the Olympic events will be distributed worldwide via EBU and broadcasted live on the ISSF website, on the Federation’s Livestream channel and on its official Facebook page.
Live results, 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.