Yang Wei wins gold at Azerbaijan ISSF World Cup

Yang Wei from Inner Mongolia won gold during the men's 10-meter air pistol match at the ISSF Rifle and Pistol World Cup held in Gabala, Azerbaijan on June 11, which was his first world championship and the region’s first shooting gold medalist.

China assigned Yang Wei, Yang Lei from Gansu province, and Wu Jianfeng from Fujian province to compete in the men's 10-meter air pistol qualifiers. 

Yang Wei fired 578 rings and ranked fifth to enter the final. Wu also reached the final, while Yang Lei went out on 574 rings.

During the first round of the final, Yang Wei shot 100.3 rings ranking first above Japan's Tomoyuki Matsuda.

In the following round, Yang was overtaken by Matsuda. Nevertheless, the 32-year-old shooter managed to regain the lead. 

Eventually, Yang won the championship on 240.1 rings, with 2.2 rings overwhelming the silver medalist Matsuda. Oleh Omelchuk from Ukraine claimed the third.

It's the third gold medal Chinese shooters have won in Azerbaijan, with the previous two earned by Peng Xinyi, the winner of the women's 10-meter air pistol, and Lin Yuemei, the champion of the women's 25-meter sport pistol.

Yang also enrolled in the top 20 men's 50m air pistol but ranked 17th with 555 rings. Pang Wei, the Beijing 2008 Olympic gold medalist and Rio 2016 bronze medalist fired 553 rings ranking 20th by the end of the match. Oleh Omelchuk won the championship.

Azerbaijan is the fifth and last stop of the 2017 ISSF Rifle and Pistol World Cup Series.

Yang also qualified to attend the ISSF Rifle and Pistol World Cup Finals that will be held in India from Oct 23 to 30.

On the last match of June 13, China’s 19-year-old Shi Mengyao from Henan province claimed the fourth gold during the women's 50-meter rifle three positions. She broke the world youth record by scoring 459 rings in the final.

Shi also won a silver medal during the women's 10-meter air pistol. Two Chinese shooters Shi Mengyao and Peng Xinyi both fired 248.1 rings in the final, and then entered the "last one shot". Peng narrowly scored 0.4 rings higher than Shi.

The Chinese shooting squad ranked first in terms of gold medal tally and total medals won, with four golds, three silvers and one bronze.

There were another six countries winning one gold medal, including Austria, Denmark, and Germany. A total of 18 countries claimed medals during the competition. 

The ISSF World Cup was introduced by the International Shooting Sport Federation in 1986 to provide a homogeneous system for qualification to the Olympic shooting competitions. It is still carried out at Olympic shooting events, with four competitions per year in each event. Since 1988, the best shooters have gone on to compete in the World Cup Final.

Yang Wei (M) from Inner Mongolia holds his gold medal after winning the men's 10-meter air pistol match of the ISSF Rifle and Pistol World Cup held in Gabala, Azerbaijan on June 11. [Photo/nmgsports.gov.cn]