DT – Beijing’s Silver D’ANIELLO starts in the lead
The 40-year old Italian athlete Francesco D’ANIELLO shot gold with a total score of 185 targets (140+45 hits in the final match). He preceded on the podium Qatar’s Rashid AL-ATHBA, Silver medalist with 183 hits (139+44) and Roland GEREBICS of Hungary, Bronze medalist with 182 hits (136+46).
“It’s great to start a new Olympic Cycle in the lead!” Said D’Aniello right after the last competition shot. The Italian shooter had finished in second behind USA’s Eller at the last Games of Beijing, and closed in fourth the 2008 ISSF World Cup Final in Minsk.
“This is a beautiful, fantastic shooting range, a great place to host a world cup, but the competition has been difficult – added D’Aniello – I had a few visibility problems. The light-orange targets did not contrast very well with the brown/green background… all of the top shooters struggled a little bit today.”
Silver was taken by 28-year old Rashid AL-ATHBA of Qatar, who had shot a Bronze medal here in Cairo at the 2004 World Cup held here.
Bronze went to Hungary’s Roland Gerebics, ninth at the last Olympic Games of Beijing. The Hungarian shooter, eighth in the world rank, had won his last ISSF medal at the 2008 World Cup held in Suhl, Germany.
The current number 4 in the world, Sweden’s Håkan DAHLBY closed the match in fourth place with 180 hits (136+44), after shooting-off 4 to 3 targets UAE’s Saif ALSHAMSY, who finished in fifth (138+42 +3 in the shoot-off).
Beijing’s Olympic finalist Jeffrey HOLGUIN of the USA, 30, closed his match in sixth place with 177 hits (135+42). He had made into the six-shooter final match by shooting-off China’s LI 2 to 1 targets.
