Belarus’ Martynov won the 50m Rifle Prone match in Munihc, claiming the title on the same lines where he had won the World Championship just two months ago.

The “best prone shooter of the world”, the current World Champion and world rank’s leader, Belarus’ Sergey Martynov, did not delude his fans, and nailed another extraordinary victory today, claiming the 2010 ISSF World Cup Final gold medal after an intense match.

The 42-year old Belarusian shooter made it into the final with an unbeatable qualification score of 600 points, equalling the world record for the sixth time in his career, and becoming the shooter with the highest number of equalled world records in this event. Then, shooting solidly, he managed his advantage over the followers by scoring 103.2 points throughout the ten-shot final, ending with the Gold with 703.2 points.

“Five years ago I’ve lost a Gold medal in spite of entering the final with an equalled world record, so nothing was sure, after the qualifications.” Martynov commented after the final match, remembering the 2005 ISSF World Cup Final held here in Munich the 26^th of August of five years ago, when he eventually ended up in second place “Finals are always difficult. I really did not make anything special to prepare myself, I just shot as good as I could.”

This victory concluded Martynov’s great season. In spite of struggling to finish on the podium of the first world cup stages of the year, the 42-year old Belarusian shooter proved to be the best prone shooter of the world at the last ISSF World Championship, held here in Munich last August. Shooting on the same lines, he won the World Champion title, becoming the first athlete of the ISSF history to win two World Championship Rifle Prone gold medals (he had led also the 2006 edition in Zagreb).

The next aim? “I am shooting for Gold, and the focus is now on the Olympic Games”, as Martynov had said here in Munich. After winning five World Cup Finals and two World Championships, Sergei wants indeed to go for the only trophy he is missing, the most important, the Olympic Gold.

Martynov turned out to be unreachable, today, but the last three shots of the match kept the spectator’s breath, as they decided the podium placements behind the champion, with four shooters ending up with a difference of 0.7 points, tenths of a millimetre on a 50m Rifle Prone target.

105.7 points, today’s best final score, were not enough to grab the Gold medal. Norway’s Vebjoern Berg, the title defender, winner of the 2009 World Cup Final in Wuxi, qualified in seventh place with 596 points, and then climbed up the scoreboard with a series of excellent shots. Fighting against Starik, Rothmund and Junghaenel throughout the whole final round, he totalized that outstanding final score, and eventually landed in second place thanks to a last shot of 10.6 points, with a total score of 701.7 points.

Germany’s Henri Junghaenel, 22-year old, one of the youngest participants, followed him in third place. He had qualified to participate in this ISSF World Cup Final by finishing on the podium of the Beijing’s World Cup Stage, where he had won his first world cup medal ever.  Starting today’s final in second place with 598 points, he fought against Berg since the first shots, sliding then in third place at the last shot, where he landed with 701.5 points and the Bronze.

Junghaenel beat by 0.1 points the second German shooter, his teammate Armin Rothmund, whose best World Cup placement had been a fifth place at this year’s Fort Benning’s Stage. The 31-year old athlete eventually ended up in fourth place, with a last shot of 10.1, and a total score of 701.4 points, just 0.1 far from the first international podium of his career.

Following just tenths behind them, the experienced Israeli champion Guy Starik, 45, finished in fifth place. Qualified for the final match in third place with a qualification score of 597 points, he duelled against the two German teammates and the Norwegian Silver medallist right to the end, eventually finishing in fifth place with 701.0 points.

Australia’s Warren Potent, USA’s Joseph Hein and India’s Joydeep Karmar closed the match in sixth, seventh and eighth place, respectively.

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The last shot turned out to be determinant to decide today’s 50m Rifle Prone Men final round, at the fourth and last leg of the 2010 ISSF World Cup Series, held in Belgrade, Serbia, in these days.

USA’s Michael McPhail won the final match with a last shot of 10.4 points, securing the brightest medal with a total score of 702.8 points, winning a duel against his teammate Emmons, who missed on his last shot, finishing far behind.

McPhail, 28-year old, ranked sixth in the world, beat his teammate Matthew Emmons, 29, fifth in the world, at the very last shot. The two American athletes had qualified for the final match in first and second place, with a qualification score of 599 and 598 points, respectively.

After the ninth competition shot, the two athletes were tied in the lead, so that the last shot decided the podium placements. McPhail, who fired an excellent 10.4 in spite of the wind, ended up on the highest step of the podium to receive his first ISSF medal this year. At the same time, Emmons closed his round with a frustrating 9.0, sliding out of the top-3 and landing in fourth place with 701.4 points.

Istral’s Guy Starik, 45, and Austria’s Christian Planer took advantage of Emmons’ defiance, overtaking him and moving up on the podium to finish in second and third place, respectively.

Starik, who closed the final round with an excellent 10,8, and with today’s highest final score (105.2 points), secured Silver with a total score of 702.2 points.

Planer, who had finished in seventh at the last world cup stage in Fort Benning, grabbed the Bronze medal with a total score of 701.5 points. Closing the final with a  10.4, the Austrian shooter left the unlucky American finalist Matthew Emmons in fourth place with 701.4 points, just one tenths of a point far from the podium.

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Three shooters entered the 50m Rifle Prone match tied in the lead with 598 points after the qualifications, and fought right to the end for the Gold.

USA’s Joseph Hein and Eric Uptagrafft, and the German shooter Henri Junghaenel went back and forth in first, second and third position throughout the ten-shot final, in a close battle for the medals.

Joseph Hein, 28, competing in an ISSF Word Cup final round for the first time in the 50m Rifle Prone Men event, started off the round with a great 10.8 that put him in the lead. In spite of struggling on the third and fourth shot (when he scored two 9.9), the young American shooter managed to keep the leadership by a few, precious, tenths, by shooting a couple of great shots in the inner tenths. The 28-year old athlete eventually finished on the highest step of the podium, claiming Gold with a total score of 702.2 points (598+104.2), and just three tenths of advantage on the Silver medallist.

His teammate Eric Uptagrafft and Germany’s Henri Junghaenel duelled right to the last shot for the Silver medal. The experienced 44-year old American shooter (a 1996 Olympian who scored a world record in 2005) lost his chance at the last shot by firing a frustrating 9.9 that landed him in third place with a total score of 701.2 points. On the other side, the 22-year old first time finalist Junghaenel closed the round with an outstanding 10.8, finishing on the second step of the podium with a total score of 701.9 points, just seven tenths more than Uptagrafft.

Uptagrafft, coming back on an ISSF podium after missing since 2005, also risked loosing the Bronze, as the two-time Olympic Bronze medallist Segei Martynov of Belarus placed in fourth just one tenth of a point behind him. Martinov indeed closed with a total score of 701.1 points, climbing up from the eighth qualification spot by shooting today’s highest score in the final, 105.1 points. The Belarusian shooter had won a World Cup Bronze just a few weeks ago, at the first ISSF World Cup Stage of the season, in Sydney.

France’s Josselin Henry finished in fourth, followed by the second German finalist, Maik Eckhardt. The four-time Russian Olympian Artem Khadjibekov followed them in seventh, while Japan’s Toshikazu Yamashita closed the match in eighth place.

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