ISSF World Cup Rifle / Pistol · Gabala, AZE

The 41-year-old shooter climbed on the highest step of the World Cup podium for the fifth time in his career, with Belarus’ Yury Shcherbatsevich taking the Silver and Belgium’s Lionel Cox claiming the Bronze.

An action-packed competition day in Gabala (AZE) opened with Denmark’s Torben Grimmel pocketing his fifth career World Cup Gold, as he equaled the World Record in the men’s 50m Rifle Prone event.

The Danish 41-year-old sealed the top position with a couple of almost-perfect 10.7 in his final series, matching the 249.8 points scored by Japan’s Yamashita Toshikazu at this year’s first World Cup stage in New Delhi (IND).

Grimmel battled all along the match with Belarus’ 32-year-old Yury Shcherbatsevich, a three-time Olympian whose only previous World Cup medal dates back to Bangkok (THA) in 2004. Today, Shcherbatsevich shot consistently for the whole final, matching Grimmel’s score at the end of the eighth series, but failing to best him in the ninth and conclusive one.

The Belarusian shooter finished with the score of 248.9 points and the Silver medal around his neck.

The Olympic Silver medalist at the London 2012 Olympic Games, Belgium’s Lionel Cox (35), took the third step of the podium with 227.9 points, securing his second career World Cup medal after the Bronze he won in Changwon (KOR) in 2013.

Firing a couple of disappointing 9.6 in his seventh series, Switzerland’s first-time finalist Jan Lochbihler (25) slid out of the medal positions, landing in 4th place with 206.7 points, while Great Britain’s Kenneth Parr finished 5th with 187.0.

The British shooter was followed by Russian Federation’s Fedor Vlasov (33), who finished in 6th place with 187.0 points, and France’s first-time finalist Alexis Raynaud (22), 7th with 144.3.

The first athlete to be eliminated from the match was Austria’s 27-year-old Thomas Mathis, Bronze medalist at last month’s World Cup stage in Munich, who placed in 8th position with 121.9 points.

Live results of the competitions, news and updates will be available on www.issf-sports.org and on all ISSF social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Weibo and Youku.