IPC Shooting World Cup heads to Turkey

Last month, 124 shooters from 20 nations competed in Szczecin, Poland, setting 16 new world records at what was the first international shooting event of the Rio 2016 Paralympic cycle.

The second installment of the 2013 IPC Shooting World Cup will begin on Wednesday (15 May) in Antalya, Turkey, following on from a record-laden World Cup competition in Poland last month.

At this week’s event, the Brazilian shooting team will kick off their road to Rio campaign and for the first time ever, the National Paralympic Committee (NPC) of Georgia will send an athlete, Vladimer Tchincharauli, to compete at an IPC Shooting competition.

With home soil advantage, Turkey’s Cagla Bas and Aysel Ozgan – silver medallist in the women’s P2 10m air pistol - will be on the hunt for the gold medals that eluded them in Poland, as will Great Britain’s Matt Skelhon who found himself up against an impressive Tatiana Ryabchenko of Russia.

Pistol shooter Olivera Nakovska-Bikova, who became FYR Macedonia’s first Paralympic gold medallist at London 2012, will compete in the P2 10m air pistol SH1.

Last month, 124 shooters from 20 nations competed in Szczecin, Poland, setting 16 new world records at what was the first international shooting event of the Rio 2016 Paralympic cycle.

The Polish competition also saw several new IPC rule changes brought into play, including a new final format and the trial of a decimal point scoring system in the 10m air rifle and 50m events.

In the new final format, qualification scores are not carried over into the final, meaning each finalist starts from zero. Athletes with the lowest scores are eliminated over the course of a final, until a duel between the two remaining athletes for gold and silver medals ensues.

Notable performances in Szczecin included an international competitive debut from Sweden’s Martin Hall, who won gold in the 10m air rifle standing SH1 category with a score of 204.9. Martin also set a new world and European record in the process.

With the overall lead changing hands five times during the course of the R2 women’s 10m air rifle standing SH1 final, it was Slovakia’s Beijing gold and London bronze medallist, Veronkia Vadovicova, who eventually stormed ahead to take the gold medal from Turkey’s Cagla Bas.

Russia’s Sergey Malyshev, a silver medallist in the P3 25m pistol SH1 class at London 2012, won himself a further two gold medals in the P1 10m air pistol and P5 10m air pistol standard SH1 categories.