Super 25. The favourite discovered: Rifle Women Events

Following the tradition, the shooting sports will open the 2008 Olympic Games of Beijing. The 10m Air Rifle Women Event will assign the very first medals of these Olympiad. The pressure is high, and the time left can be counted in hours. Who could stand on the first podium? The 10m Air Rifle Event is very close, and is not easy to make prediction. The title defender, the 26-year old home athlete Li DU, is the favourite, but she will find on her way the Czech shooter Katerina EMMONS, a strong opponent to beat. A third athlete could attempt to the title, the German rifle shooter Sonja PFEILSCHIFTER, which is also the ISSF NEWS magazine favourite for the 50m Rifle Three Positions Women Event.

50m Rifle Three Positions Women

The leader: Sonja PFEILSCHIFTER
Nation: Germany (GER)
Year of birth: 1971
Super 25 Ranking: 1st
World Ranking (01/08/2008): 1st
OG Athens ’04 Placement: 6th
Best OG Placement: 4th (Sydney 2000)

The left handed German shooter Sonja PFEILSCHIFTER proved to be able to win both 50m Rifle Three Positions and 10m Air Rifle competitions, having reached a considerable number of medals and placements in these events along a 20-year effective career. She is not new to the Olympic stages, and she should be considered one of the athletes to look at during the next Games of Beijing. She started at the Games of Barcelona 1992, at the age of 21, placing far behind the bests. But she rapidly improved, winning international competitions as the 1994 World Championships of Milan and the following 1998 editions of the championships set in Barcelona both in the 10m and in the 50m events. After missing the 1996 Olympics of Atlanta, PFEILSCHIFTER resulted to be one of the finalists of the 2000 Games of Sydney. There, she came closer to the medals, placing in fifth in the 10m Air Rifle final and in fourth in the 50m Rifle Three Positions event.
Winning an outstanding bouquet of World Cups and continental medals, PFEILSCHIFTER arrived at the Olympics of Athens as one of the favourite as well, but fortune did not help her. Once again, she entered the final round, but had to renounce to the podium dream eventually placing in sixth in both the events. The 2008 World Cup season placed her in the favourites list once again. PFEILSCHIFTER astonished everybody, winning Gold at the World Cups in Munich and Milan in both her events, collecting four brightest medals and setting a new Final World Record within one week. 
This German top-shooter has won almost everything possible: four World Champions titles, four World Cup Finals and over 20 World Cups Gold medals, next to several European titles. For her outstanding results she has also been declared “Shooter of the year” two consecutive times, in 1998 and 1999. But she still missing the most precious medals, the Olympics, and it is sure that she will displace her best skills to reach the podium in Beijing.

50m Rifle Three Positions Women

10m Air Rifle Women

The leader: Li DU
Nation: People’s Republic of China (CHN)
Year of birth: 1982
Super 25 Ranking: 1st
World Ranking (01/08/2008): 3rd
OG Athens ’04 Placement: 1st
Best OG Placement: 1st (Athens 2004)

The current Olympic Champion DU Li of China is the unbeatable Air Rifle World’s best women shooter since 2004. Starting from the Games of Athens, when she was awarded with the Air Rifle Gold, DU Li has been winning almost every World-level valuable price and title. The ISSF World Cup series has became a stage for her most representative successes: she won the ISSF World Cup Final, which is the conclusive appointment of every international shooting season, for four consecutive years (2004, ’05, ’06, ’07). None of her opponents was able to attempt to her leadership, neither in continental nor in World level championships. So she rose on the highest step of the podium at the 2006 World Championships of Zagreb, and won the 2006 edition of the Asian Games. And those excellent results had to be replicated the following year, when Li DU was awarded as the 2007 Asian Champion in the 10m Air Rifle Event.
The Chinese champion seemed to suffer of the Olympic pressure during the 2008 World Cup season, when she frequently lost the first position in favour of skilled opponents such as Katerina EMMONS of Czech Republic and Sonja PFEILSCHIFTER of Germany. These two athletes, along with the second Chinese shooter Yinghui ZHAO, could try to attempt to the Olympic title defended by Li DU. A task that won’t be easy to accomplish, most say.

10m Air Rifle Women