Britain’s Seonaid McIntosh bettered her former world record mark of 467.0 points in the women’s 50m rifle 3 positions to secure a second gold at the ISSF World Cup in Cairo.
The 27-year-old Scot, who partnered Dean Bale to victory in last Saturday’s 10m air rifle mixed team event, scored 469.3 points on the final day of competition in the Egyptian capital, missing the current world record set by India’s Sift Kaur Samra at last September’s Asian Games by just 0.3 points.
In the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions France’s 19-year-old rising star Romain Aufrere saw gold slip from his grasp on his final shot as, with a lead of 0.4 points over 22-year-old Jiri Privratsky, he scored a 7.9.
The Czech shooter – who set the world record of 466.1 last year - made his greater experience pay as he checked out with a 10.7 that won him his fourth individual World Cup title by a margin of 462.9 to 460.5.
McIntosh, who set her previous best mark in Baku last May, earned her fourth World Cup title with a dominant display at the Egypt International Olympic City shooting range.
On the final day of the opening World Cup of the Olympic season it was a big confirmation of Paris 2024 potential for McIntosh, who had secured Britain’s first World Cup 10m air rifle team title with a final perfect shot of 10.9.
She moved inexorably towards the top before establishing a lead in the first of the standing elimination rounds.
Superb consistency enabled her to pull clear of all opposition to finish with a winning margin of 4.8 points over her nearest challenger, Switzerland’s 24-year-old Chiara Leone, who claimed her first individual World Cup medal with a final score of 464.5.
And, notably, a second Swiss shooter reached the podium in the form of 15-year-old Emely Jaeggi, individual gold medallist at last year’s Junior World Cup in Suhl – also a first individual World Cup medal on what was her debut appearance.
Asked if she had been so far ahead that she wasn’t worried about losing the gold, McIntosh smilingly replied to ISSF TV:
“Well, no, I’m always a bit worried, anything could happen!
“I’ve been working very hard on doing my process despite any pressure, so I think today obviously worked.
“But you keep having to work at it, otherwise maybe it doesn’t work.”
Asked about her victory at last year’s Cairo World Cup in the women’s 10m air rifle, she added: “Last year I was focusing really hard on the 10m air rifle at the start of the season, so I didn’t do 50m here.
“Because I wanted to do the 10m at the Europeans last year. So I did that. But I like to think they are both my babies now.”
Jaeggi was overwhelmed after her first senior World Cup appearance.
“It’s amazing, I am so happy with that,” she told ISSF TV.
Asked if she had been concerned about taking part in a top quality final that included the Tokyo 2020 champion, her compatriot Nina Christen, she shook her head.
“No, because she is a friend of mine,” she said. “So it is very easy for me to speak with her. And that was a big help to me here.”
Norway’s Jenny Stene just missed the podium having led after the kneeling phase with 157.7, two points clear of Leone, and the prone phase, where she concluded 1.1 points clear of McIntosh on 314.2.
Germany took fifth and sixth place through, respectively, Lisa Mueller and 22-year-old Anna Janssen, who had won 10m air rifle mixed team bronze followed by women’s 10m air rifle gold over the weekend.
Kim Jehee of the Republic of Korea was seventh, with Christen taking eighth place.
Underlining the hugely competitive nature of the event, Norway’s World Cup Final gold medallist Jeanette Hegg Duestad finished 23rd in qualifying, and Poland’s Aneta Stankiewicz, the World Cup Final women’s 10m air rifle champion, was 31st.
Aufrere, who won world junior titles in the 10m air rifle and this event in Changwon last year, had been second behind India’s eventual bronze medallist Akhil Sheoran, the world silver medallist and Asian champion, in the kneeling and prone phases, but had taken over the lead in the first of the standing elimination rounds.
His form began to fall away over the single-shot rounds but he remained in pole position despite successive scores of 9.8 and 9.5 – with Sheoran faltering to a 9.2 – and strengthened his grip with a 10.7.
Another 9.8 with his penultimate shot still kept him in gold-medal position on 452.6 as Sheoran settled for bronze on 451.8, with Privatsky on 452.2.
But his last effort dropped the French shooter, agonisingly, from gold to silver. He offered his coach and fans a rueful smile.
It was still a huge achievement for a huge talent.
“Honestly I feel amazing because overall this World Cup was a little rough for me,” Privratsky said. “The air rifle didn’t go exactly as I would wish for it to go, so I’m quite happy with how the small bore went, obviously!”
Going into the elimination rounds Privratsky had been level with Oleh Tsarkov on 310.5 – although in fourth place due to the fact that he had only qualified seventh best and the Ukrainian had topped qualifying ahead of Sheoran.
But once the elimination rounds began he began a steady march to the top of the podium.
Tsarkov missed the podium by one place, finishing one place ahead of Dean Bale, who had partnered McIntosh to win the 10m air rifle mixed team title.
Lorenzo Bacci of Italy was sixth, with Sweden’s world champion Viktor Lindgren taking seventh place and Kazakhstan’s Konstantin Malinovskiy finishing eighth.