Italy’s 20-year-old Niccolo Campriani produced an early marker in his outstanding career at the 2008 World University Championships Shooting Sport event in Beijing.
Campriani’s gold medal in the 10m air rifle men came two years before he won the 2010 world title in that event.
Two years later at the London Olympics Campriani (pictured) won 10m air rifle silver and 50m rifle 3 positions gold.
At the Rio 2016 Games Campriani, who now combines competing with coaching, retained his air rifle title and went one better in the 3 positions.
The second edition of this dedicated FISU event involved numerous athletes who had competed at the Beijing Games held a couple of months earlier, attracting 306 contestants - 162 men and 144 women - from 28 countries.
According to FISU’s technical delegate for sport shooting, Ivana Ertlova, the competition was comparable to that of an ISSF World Championship or a European Championship.
This edition also proved particularly significant for Slovakian athletes.
Gold in the trap men event went to Slovakia’s Marian Kovacocy, who had won the world junior title in 2001. A three-times Olympian, he went on to win world gold the following year, adding world silver last year.
In the skeet women Kovacocy’s compatriot Danka Bartekova earned silver behind Oana Bianca Lupan of Cyprus, with her twin sister Lenka finishing ninth. Danka, Lenka and Monika Zemkova won the team title.
While Lenka would go on to compete at the highest level, winning European bronze in 2010, it was Danka who would go on to make numerous podium appearances.
Now 39, she has competed at the last five Olympics, earning bronze at the London 2012 Games. Last year, having won four world bronzes, she took gold in Baku.