Thailand claim home gold at shooting World Cup

Thailand’s Anusorn Chaichamnan rounded off competition at the IPC Shooting World Cup in perfect style pn Friday (18 March) with the maiden win of his career at home in Bangkok, Thailand.

Chaichamnan (212.7) fought back against Ukraine’s Europeans silver medallist Vasyl Kovalchuk (212.2) to claim victory in R5 (mixed 10m air rifle prone SH2).

The pair went into the final elimination round tied at 191.7. However Chaichamnan shot two near-perfect scores of 10.8 to grab gold in only his second international competition.

Slovenia’s Gorazd Francek Tirsek (189.5) completed the top three.

Ukraine’s Oleksii Denysiuk secured a golden triple with his latest win on the pistol range.

Denysiuk has dominated this week, winning his two other events, and on Friday he returned to claim the top of the podium in P4 (mixed 50m pistol SH1).

It was not easy going however, as Denysiuk (184.3) lost his lead in the fourth elimination round to Thailand’s Bordin Sornsriwichai (183.0).

It was only a slip by the Thai athlete in the final round, dropping to a 7.7 and 9.0, that handed Denysiuk the win.

South Korea’s Juhee Lee (162.6) was third, contributing to his country’s overall gold in the team event. Aeekyung Moon and Youngkyun Seo joined with Lee for a total score of 1564.

Turkey enjoyed a podium finish as Korhan Yamac, Aysel Ozgan and Murat Oguz (1548) collected silver. Poland’s Szymon Sowinski, Slawomir Okoniewski and Filip Rodzik (1534) claimed third.

Germany’s Natascha Hiltrop (203.6) took her second World Cup victory of 2016 after a dramatic conclusion to R6 (mixed 50m rifle prone SH1).

Hiltrop had occupied second place for the majority of the match but managed to stay close to Slovakia’s Veronika Vadovicova (203.0).

That paid off in the final set of shots as the Slovakian dropped to a 9.9 and 10.1. Hiltrop capitalised, posting a 10.8 and 10.4 to claim gold.

Ukraine’s Andrii Doroshenko (182.1) held the lead at one point, but settled for bronze after dropping below 10.0 twice in the penultimate round.

In the team R6, Norway were the victors courtesy of Ove Foss, Amanda Dybendal and Paul Aksel Johansen (1789.8).

The United Arab Emirates were second with the trio of Abdulla Saif Alaryani, Abdullah Sultan Alaryani and Saif Alnuaimi scoring 1780.9.

France enjoyed their second team podium of the competition with Christophe Tanche, Didier Richard and Cedric Fevre (1772.4) taking bronze.

Full results are available online.

The final IPC Shooting World Cup ahead of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games gets underway in Szczecin, Poland, from 1-4 May.