On the second to last day at the Asia Qualifying Competition for Shooting, Malaysia’s anthem finally resounded in the finals hall of the Dr. Karni Shooting Range in New Delhi (IND). It happened thanks to Johnathan Wong Guanjie, who claimed the 10m Air Pistol Men Gold medal after an exciting battle with Atallah Alanazi of Saudi Arabia.
Wong, indeed, led the match for its entire first half, building a comfortable 2.6-points advantage along the first 5th series, but nailing a disappointing 8.2 on his 13th shot. In the next following three series, then, Atallah got closer to his rival eventually claiming the lead after the 18th shot.
In the last series, anyway, Wong hit an excellent 10.7-10.3 combination, overtaking Atallah and pocketing the Gold medal with 198.7 points, also earning the first Olympic quota place up for grabs in this event. Despite finishing 2nd with the final score of 198.3 points, Atallah was awarded with the second slot for Rio 2016, the first one for Saudi Arabia in New Delhi.
3rd, with the final score of 176.9 points, placed North Korean shooter Kim Jong Su.
Both quota places allocations were decided as soon as Kuo Kuan-Ting of Chinese Tapiei concluded in fourth position with 155.8 points, followed by Japan’s Tomoyuki Matsuda with 134.7 points and South Korea’s Jang Jin Hyuk with 116.0. Both not eligible for an Olympic slot.
The last two athletes eligible for a quota place finished in the bottom two positions of the final: Omkar Singh of India concluded 7th with 94.6 points, while Seiji Morikawa of Japan placed 8th with 74.2.
The competition will continue this afternoon with the Skeet Women final scheduled at 3:30 (UTC+5:30).
Live updates will be available online on the ISSF website and on the ISSF social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Sina Weibo.