THE 50TH ISSF WORLD SHOOTING CHAMPIONSHIP IN MUNICH

Photo: Massimiliano Naldoni (1)
RIFLE EVENTS
[i] firsT QUOTa place fOr
The lOndOn 2012 Games
10m aIR RIFLE mEN
The firsT Olympian Of The lOndOn
2012 Games is 22-year old Italian Rifle shooter,
niccOlO campriani, an student from Florence,
currently studying engineering and training
at the West Virginia University, in USA. It
took a while for Campriani to realize what he had
done, after his last competition shot. It took him a
few seconds to understand that he had become
the new 10m Air Rifle Men World Champion, as
well as the first athlete of the world qualified for
the 2012 Olympics among all sports.
The Italian shooter won the most important
match of his life with a great performance,
shooting solidly before his father,
his team-mates and his friends, as well as
hundreds of paying spectators and millions
of viewers watching the match live from
all around the world. Campriani, who had
already finished in the spotlight during this
year’s ISSF World Cup series by winning at
the World cup held in Fort Benning (USA),
booked the Gold since the morning’s qualifications.
He made it into the final round with
a qualification score of 599 out of 600 points,
just one point away from the World Record.
Then, shooting consistently in the final,
he defeated Hungarian shooter Peter Sidi,
climbing up to the lead with 103.5 points and
eventually finishing on the highest step of
the podium with a total score of 702.5 points.
“Mine is the first Quota Place, I did not realize
that before,” Campriani said right after
the last shot. “The Olympic Quota Place goes
1st campriani, niccolo (iTa)
campRIaNI IS LONdON’S FIRST OLympIaN
to the country, but I am glad I won it. Now
I want to fulfill my Olympic dream!” Campriani’s
achievement not only gave Italy the
first 2012 Olympic qualification spot, but also
ended the bad patch experienced by the Italian
target shooting team by winning a World
Championship title which they had failed to
obtain for years. “After 40 years, Italy returns
to the top of a World Championship podium,
in a rifle event – Campriani explained – this
is going to help me, the sport and our federation.
I am so happy!”
Following the Italian shooter, the Silver
medal went to peTer sidi of Hungary, the
“2009 Shooter of the Year”, as the sport journalists
of the AIPS elected him at the beginning
of this season. The 31-year old athlete finishing
in second place with a overall score of 700.4
points, after marking 101.4 points throughout
the ten-shot final. The Hungarian shooter also
obtained one of the available Quota Places
for the 2012 Games, and declared that he will
try his best to top his sixth place at the 2008
Olympics in Beijing.
Landing in third place, the Indian topranked
shooter GaGan naranG finished on
the podium, obtaining the Bronze medal with
a total score of 699.0 points. After making it
into the final in fifth place with 597 points, the
27-year old Indian moved up in third place by
scoring 102.0 points during the final, earning
the third Quota Place, his entrance ticket to
the next Olympic Games. “Abhinav Bindra
50 th ISSF World ChampIoNShIp muNICh
2nd sidi, peter (hUn)
3rd naranG, Gagan (ind)
(the first ever Olympic Gold medallist of India)
finished on the podium of the last World
Championship, in 2006. I am happy that another
Indian has earned a medal here in Munich,”
said the current World Record holder
Narang after the awards. “I have been struggling
with the materials in the last couple of
years, but now everything’s ok. There are still
some aspects that need tuning, but I am confident:
I am ready for the Games!”
The winning trio, Campriani, Sidi and Narang,
stole the show, leaving behind the 2004
Olympic Champion and 2008 Olympic Silver
medallist, Zhu Qinan, who could not fulfil his
dream here in Munich. The Chinese champion
had clearly said that his goal was the title: “I
wanna become the world champion, nothing
less” he had said just one month ago, after
winning the World Cup stage held in Fort
Benning, USA. But, in spite of his great determination,
he finished in fourth place with an
overall score of 698.9 points, after participating
in a shoot off with Italy’s Marco De Nicolo by
10.4 to 10.0 points. Both the shooters obtained
Olympic Quota Places, while the USA’s Matthew
Emmons and Serbia’s Nemanja Mirosavljev
(seventh and eighth) did not earn a qualification
spot, as only six quotas were granted
in this event. China and Italy also were the
stars of the teams’ ranking. The People’s Republic
of China landed in first place, earning
the teams’ Gold medal with 1787 points scored
by Zhu and his team-mates Wang Tao and Liu
Tianyou. Meanwhile, new world champion
Campriani’s Italian team (with his team-mates
De Nicolo and Giorgio Sommaruga) won the
teams’ Bronze medal with 1782 points, finishing
behind the Russian Federation, Silver with
1787 points scored by Denis Sokolov, Konstantin
Prikhodtchenko and Sergey Kamenskiy.
ISSF NEWS 35