Japan's Tomayuki Matsuda clinches first-ever ISSF WC gold

New Delhi, October 26, 2017: Japan's two-time world champion Tomayuki Matsuda claimed his first-ever International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Final (WCF) Gold in the men's 10m Air Pistol event in a world record effort at New Delhi's Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range on Thursday.

Tomayuki shot a sublime 241.8 to hold off the fast catching up Pavlo Korostylov of Ukraine, who finished with 241.1 in the 24 shot final to claim Silver. Fellow Ukrainian Oleh Omelchuk won Bronze with an effort of 218.8.

Earlier, both India's Jitu Rai in the men's 10m Air Pistol and Pooja Ghatkar in the women's 10m Air Rifle, missed qualifying for the final of their respective events when they both finished ninth in qualifying. Only the top eight qualify for the final. Jitu shot 572 behind the eventual winner Tomayuki, who qualified eighth with a score of 573.

Pooja also faced similar heartbreak as her effort of 412.4 was 0.1 behind Norway's Malin Westerheim, who took the eighth and final qualifying spot with a score of 412.5 after 40 shots.

This was the mercurial Japanese Pistol shooter's eighth overall medal at the ISSF World Cup. He has four Silver's and three bronze medals before this first Gold apart from his two World Championship titles and fifteen World Cup stage medals of which seven were Gold. This was also his second Gold in Delhi, having won the event here in the first World Cup stage held in February this year.

In the women's 10m Air Rifle, Serbia's Andrea Arsovic successfully defended the title she had won last year in Bologna, Italy, when she shot 251.3 in the women's final to get the better off Romania's Laura-Georgeta Coman, who finished with 249.7 to claim the Silver. Xinyi Peng of the People's Republic of China won the Bronze.

In the men's skeet, Italy's Riccardo Filippelli won Gold beating Ben Llewellin of Great Britain 4-3 in a shoot-off. Both were tied at 59 out of the allotted 60 shots in the final. Argentina's Federico Gil finished third to claim the Bronze, finishing with a score of 49. This was Filippelli's second title at the Karni Singh, having won a popular Gold at the first World Cup stage here back in February.

Thanks to Filippelli's effort, Italy shot up to the top of the medals table given their two earlier Silvers while China came down to second with one Gold, one Silver and Four Bronze's thus far in the competition. India, with their solitary Gold are joint seventh with Spain and Japan, among 14 countries to have won medals so far.

Among the key attractions on Friday are the men's 50m Pistol final featuring India's Jitu Rai while the trio of World number one Ankur Mittal, Shapath Bharadwaj and Sangram Dahiya will be fighting it out in the Men's Double Trap. (ANI)