Final 10m Air Pistol Women

52nd ISSF World Championship All Events · Changwon, KOR

The Greek champion beat her best friend Zorana Arunovic in the final duel for gold. At the last world championship she won a junior title, today she’s the best pistol shooter of the world.

Rio 2016 Gold and Bronze medalist Anna Korakaki of Greece is the new women’s Air Pistol world champion.

The 22-year old athlete beat Serbia’s Zorana Arunovic, 31, with a total tally of 241.1 points.

2010 world champion Arunovic secured silver with 239.8 points,

Following them, South Korea’s Kim Boni took bronze with 218.8 points. The home shooter led throughout most of the match, sliding then down the scoreboard as she fired two frustrating last shots - 8.7 and 9.5.

The medalists - as well as the fourth ranked shooter Wang Qian of the People’s Republic of China (198.1 points) - received a Tokyo 2020 Olympic quota places for their countries.

Korakaki said:

“This is massive, I am speechless. This is a great day for me.”

The Greek athlete, at the age of 22, has already won almost everything to be won in this sport: an Olympic gold (in the 25m pistol event) and bronze in Rio de Janeiro, an ISSF World Cup Final in 2016, as well as three world cup stages and several junior titles.

“I won this title at my first try. In 2014, at the last ISSF world championship, I was still competing among junior athletes.”

Today’s victory came along with a qualification spot for Tokyo 2020. The quota goes to the country, but there are little doubts that Korakaki will be representing her country in Japan.

“Winning a quota place feels amazing,” she commented. “This means I can now take a long break before starting my preparation for the Games. There are still two years to go, and I will need to recharge the batteries after this championship.”

Today’s final turned out to be a rollercoaster, as Korakaki started with five strong shots, then lost ground, to finally climb back right to the top.

“I started-off today’s final in a nice way, then I had some troubles. I was able to recover in the second part of the match. The Korean shooter was far ahead of me, but she made some mistakes, allowing me to get closer and finally to overtake her.”

The last two shots were a duel again Serbia’s Arunovic, a current world record holder, ranked second in the world.

“Being in a neck and neck fight with Zorana is a bit weird for me. She’s one of my best friends, in and out the range.”

“During the final we were smiling at each other, and joking about being in that situation. But I was, of course, a bit nervous, being the athlete in the lead.”

“I made it. Now, it’s time for some holidays!”

The second Chinese finalist Jang Ranxin followed the quota place winners in fifth place with 178.7 points. She was followed by Vitalina Batsarashkina of the Russian Federation (winner of the air pistol mixed team event, a couple of days ago), 6th with 157.2 points. Klaudia Bres of Poland and South Korea’s Kim Minjung closed the match in 7th and 8th place, at 136.9 and 116.5 points, respectively.

The People’s Republic of China climbed atop of the teams podium (Jiang Raxin, Wang Qian, Ji Xiaojing) and established a new world record score of 1739 points.

The host country South Korea (Kim Minjung, Kim Bomi, Junghye Kwak) followed in second place with 1734 points, finishing 14 points ahead of the Russian Federation (Vitalina Batsarashkina, Margarita Lomova, Svetlana Medvedeva), third with 1720 points.