2016 Olympic silver medalist and European Champion Sergey Kamenskiy of the Russian Federation, 30, won today’s 10m Air Rifle Men event at the 52nd ISSF World Championship in all events in Changwon, South Korea.
The Russian champion climbed up the scoreboard with a strong series of tens, landing atop of the podium with 248.4 points.
After leading through most of the final match, Kamenskiy jeopardized his match on the second last shot, when he fired a frustrating 8.9 - the only shot out of the 10th ring of his competition.
With one shot to go, he found himself tied in the lead with Croatia’s Peter Gorsa.
The last shot turned into a shoot-off for gold. A single shot that Kamenskiy cleared with a brilliant 10.6 to Gorsa’s 9.7, pocketing the brightest medal at the end of a thrilling match. The second Croatian finalist Miran Maricic followed them in third place, claiming bronze with 227.3 points.
“I am still shaking, it has been an amazing final.” Kamenskiy said.
Then, talking about that threatening 8.9 shot, he added:
“That happens. Sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you’re not. I had built a certain advantage on my followers before that bad shot, so I was able to recover. At the same time, the last shot turned into a lucky one. I made it.”
The Russian athletes, as well as the following three finalists, won a Tokyo 2020 Olympic Quota place, a spot to participate in the next Games.
“I won the Tokyo 2020 quota place for my country.” He commented. “I will now have to keep on competing to pass the selections to make it to the Olympic team, but today’s is an important step forward.”
Silver medalist Peter Gorsa scored 247.5 points to climb on the podium, and collect the second Olympic quota awarded today.
Today’s was a special final, for the Croatian athlete, who got to share the podium with two athletes he knows very well.
“I met Sergey Kamenskiy for the first time at the 2006 ISSF World Championship in Zagreb, we were both shooting in the junior category at that time. We’re friends since then. 12 years later, today, we are still here together, and it’s great to share the podium with him.”
“Being on the podium with my teammate Miran Maricic makes it even better. I have been coaching him since years, we have been working together for so long, and I am proud of his results. Last year he won the junior world championship title. One year later - today - he made it to the podium in the open category. That’s a huge achievement.”
“I have been looking for a world championship medals for more than 10 years, so I am really happy today.”
“I think that nobody expected Croatia to win two Olympic quota places today. But we’re a strong team, and we will now work hard to be prepared for Tokyo 2020.”
China’s Hui Zicheng, 22, followed the medalists in fourth place with 206.1 points, securing the fourth and last Olympic quota to be awarded at today’s final.
The title defender, 2014 Wolrd and Youth Olympic Game Champion Yang Haoran of the People’s Republic of China followed him in fifth place with 185.7 points, ahead of India’s Deepak Kumar (164.1 points), Mahyar Sedaghat of Iran (143.0 points) and of South Korea’s Nam Taeyun (121.4 points).
Hui and Yang met again atop of the teams’ podium, as the People’s Republic of China (Yang Haoran, Hui Zicheng, Yu Haonan) secured the team’s gold medal with a combined score of 1887.4 points, a new world record.
The Russian Federation followed in second with 1884.0 points scored by Kamenskiy, Vladimir Maslennikov and Alexander Dryagin.
The host nation, South Korea, made it on the podium with 1878.5 points, thanks to Nam Taeyun, Kim Hyeonjun and Song Soojoo.