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The first time finalist Lukas GRUNDER surprised everybody at today’s 10m Air Pistol men event, claiming Gold with a record qualification score. The 19-year old Swiss shooter, who had never won an ISSF medal before, walked into the final with an equalled Junior World Record of 588 points, with a safe advantage of 5 points on the other finalists.

In spite of his lack of experience, the young GRUNDER did not hesitate and shot a fantastic match firing 103.1 points for a total score of 691.1 points, winning his first ISSF world cup medal.

GRUNDER turned out to be unreachable: Ukraine’s Serhiy KUDRIYA closed the match about nine points behind him, securing Silver with 682.2 (583+99.2) points.

The 26-year old Ukraine shooter, forty-second in the world rank, had never won an ISSF medal before, and he had taken part in an ISSF World Cup only once, at the 2008 Rio de Janeiro’s stage, when he had placed seventh.

Another first-time world cup finalist, Russia’s Denis KOULAKOV, 29, secured Bronze by placing in third with 680.6 (582+98.6) points. He was followed by two young athletes, the 18-year old Chinese shooter ZHANG Bin and the 23-year old Sergey CHERVYAKOVSKIY, who placed in fourth and fifth place, respectively.

The expert 28-year old Polish shooter Wojciech KNAPIK followed in sixth place with 678.6 points, fourth tenths more then what scored by the Olympic finalist of Beijing Brian BEAMAN, seventh with 98.2 points.

The 2008 Olympic Champion of Beijing GUO Wenjun, 24, from China, won the 10m Air Pistol women final, shooting her first medal of the year and qualifying for the ISSF World Cup Final in Rifle and Pistol events.

The Chinese shooter, who had won also the 2008 edition of the ISSF World Cup stage of Milan, placed in first with a score of 489.9 points. The Chinese shooter had qualified for today’s final match in the lead, with a qualification score of 392 points, and shot a final of 97.9 points gaining the highest step of the podium.

While GUO shot in the lead with a safe advantage on the followers, her teammate HU Jun fought right to the last shot against the Polish shooter Miroslawa SAGUN LEWANDOWSKA to secure Silver.

HU, 30-year old, winner of the second world cup stage of this season held in Beijing, finished in second winning Silver with 488.5 (388+100.6) points.
She preceded Poland’s SAGUN LEWANDOWSKA, who placed in third winning Bronze with a total score of 486.0 points. The Polish athlete shot the highest score in the final, 101.0 points, climbing from sixth place she had on the start list with a qualification score of 385 points.

Following in fourth place, the Olympic Champion of Seoul 1988, the Serbian shooter Jasna Sekaric, scored 483.6 points, and secured the fourth place by outdoing Spain’s Sonia FRANQUET 10.6 to 8.7 in a shoot-off.

Beijing’s Olympic Bronze medallist Nino SALUKVADZE climbed from the eighth to the sixth place, finishing with 482 (384+98) points. She was followed by the third Chinese shooter TONG Xin, seventh with 481.9 (386+95.9) points and by Serbia’s Zorana ARUNOVIC, eighth with 480.3 (386+94.3) points.

Guy Starik’s great performance
The ISSF world cup multi-medallist Guy STARIK of Israel, 44, a world record holder in this event, won the 50m Rifle Prone men event at the 2009 ISSF World Cup in all events in Munich with a total of 703. 3 points. Starik’s gold medal lifted Israel atop of the intermediate medal standings of this world cup stage, next to Russia.

The Israeli shooter had started the final round in the lead with a qualification score of 598 points, and build up his victory by firing great shots as a 10.8 fired on his second competition shot. With an extreme final of 105.3 points, Starik claimed his fourth world cup gold medal.

The 44-year old shooter is also a shooting coach, and one of his students, Sergey Rikhter, won a gold in the air rifle event two days ago. “To win a medal as a coach is more exciting, since you have no control on what’s going on, and this makes it more exciting!” Starik commented “But I have to admit that It’s nice to be back on a world cup podium. I had won my last world cup gold here in 2003. Munich’s shooting range is great, probably the best in the world…”

“My goals for the future are quite clear,” concluded Starik “I am looking forward to the 2012 Olympic Games in London”

Silver to USA’s champion Matthew Emmons
Following Starik, Silver went to the 2004 Olympic Champion of Athens, and Olympic Silver medallist of Beijing, Matthew EMMONS of the United States of America. Emmons, taking part in his first international competition this year, climbed the scoreboard shot after shot, overtaking both the Olympic champion Aivazian and his 27-year old team-mate Michael McPHAIL.

The American champion finished on the podium with a total score of 702.0 points (597+105.0) Emmons said: “Everybody welcomed me here in Munich! I have been taking some time off: Kate and me just welcome our first child, Julia… I started training again last January and I took it easy. This year I will not compete so often, - continued Emmons – I will not come to the next world cup in Milan, maybe we’ll see us at the World Cup Final.”

USA grabbed two medals
The United States of America celebrated two medals today, as Emmons teammate, USA’s Michael McPhail grabbed Bronze with 701.0 points. The 27-year old shooter had won a Bronze medal at the previous ISSF World Cup held at the Olympic Shooting Range of Beijing.

“The ISSF world cup in Munich is my favourite event! I like this competition! I will stay here a little bit longer for a training session, and I will prepare for this year’s world cup final. – McPhail said – Next year’s World Championship? It’s in my sights. I would like to improve to get ready for the world championships and for the 2012 Games.”

Two Champions in a shoot-ff
The Final was closed by an exciting shoot-off between the two best Rifle Prone shooters of the world. Coming from a weak qualification, Beijing’s Olympic Champion Artur AIVAZIAN of Ukraine finished the match tied to the 2008 World Cup Final winner and Beijing’s Olympic Bronze medallist Worren Potent with a total of 700.8 points. The two athletes had to pass through a shoot-off, won by Potent 10.1 to 9.0 points.

The 35-year old Slovakian shooter Jozef Goci, who had won here a World Cup Final silver medal in 2000, scored a disappointing shot of 9.0 points on his sixth competition shot, dropping down in the scoreboard. He finished his final match in fourth place with 700.9 points.

Austria’s Christian PLANER, who made into the final by winning a 10-way shoot-off, finished the final in seventh place with 698.1 points, preceding the shooting veteran Vaclav BECVAR, a 51-year old three-time Olympians, who closed the match in eighth with 696.9 points. He had won his last ISSF award in 2003, at the ISSF world cup in Changwon.

The intermediate medal standings of the ISSF World Cup stage in all events in Munich:

Richmond shot USA’s first medal.
USA’s Joshua RICHMOND won today’s Double Trap men competition at the ISSF World Cup in all events in Munich. The 24-year old American athlete shot a total of 188 out of 200 targets (145 qualification + 43 final) to finish in first.

“The new shooting venue is great, qualification’s scores have been extreme: usually 142 or a 143 hits are enough to start a final round in first or second place. Here, 143 was not enough to make into the final match.” Richmond said after the final round “Things changed in the final, the speed of the target seemed to be different, the flash targets are heavier and fly slower… that’s why you have seen all those zeros. – continued the American shooter – I did not realize I was moving up in first place. I saw the other were missing, but I focus on my pairs only… and that worked!”

GBR’s Faulds came back on an ISSF podium grabbing Silver.
Silver went to the 2000 Olympic Champion Richard Faulds of Great Britain with 187 (143+44) hits. The English shooter had to shoot-off to get into the final match, and he shoot-off to get out of it beating Qatar’s AL-ATHBA 2 to 1 hits in a shoot-off for Silver.

Faulds came back on an ISSF podium one year after the ISSF World Cup in Belgrade where he had shot silver. During last year’s ISSF world cup series, the talented double trap shooter had won the world cup stage in Suhl, Germany, and two silver medals at the world cup stages in Belgrade and Kerrville, USA.

Qatar Al-Athba shot his second podium in two weeks.
Loosing the shoot-off against Great Britain’s Faulds, Rashid Al-Athba of Qatar closed his match in third place, grabbing a Bronze medal with 187 (144+43) hits. We saw the 28-year old athlete winning a Silver medal at the last ISSF World Cup in shotgun events in Cairo, just one week ago.

Dahlby’s match: from first to sixth place.
Richmond had started the final round in second place, behind the qualification’s leader Hakan Dahlby of Sweden, who had qualified with 146 hits. The a 43-year old world cup multi-medallist fell in the second half of the match, dropping 14 out of 50 targets. He landed in sixth place, with a total score of 182 (146+36) targets, following Germany’s Waldemar SCHANZ (fourth, 186 targets) and the second American finalist Jeffrey Holguin (fifth with 185 targets).