Two Australians have made it through to medal rounds of shooting events at the Rio Paralympic Games, half way through the event.
Christopher Pitt, 51, just missed out on the bronze medal for Shooting Mixed P3-25m Pistol yesterday, after qualifying seventh. Pitt and Korea’s Ju Hee Lee battled it out in the Bronze Medal Match, with Lee coming out top. Pitt was ranked fourth, just one point below Lee.
In the Shooting Women’s R2-10m Air Rifle Standing, Natalie Smith, 41, also qualified seventh with a score of 406.1. She finished the finals fifth, with a score of 142.5. The gold medal for the event went to Slovakia’s Veronika Vadovicova, who scored 207.8.
The Australian Paralympic shooting team of six comprises the country’s oldest athlete – Elizabeth Kosmala. At 74, Kosmala is the female shooting competitor with the most medals. She has eight Paralympic Games gold medals and three silver medals under her belt. The only shooting competitor with more medals is Sweden’s Jonas Jacobsson, who has won 25.
Kosmala, who has spina bifida, first competed in a Paralympic Games in 1972 in Germany and won her first gold medal at Toronto in 1976. This year, Kosmala qualified 18th in the Shooting Women’s R2-10m Air Rifle Standing on Thursday and 37th in the Shooting Mixed R3-10m Air Rifle Prone on Saturday. She failed to qualify for the finals.
The shooting events will continue until tomorrow, with Australians competing in the following:
- Women’s R8-50m Rifle 3 Positions – Qualifications today: Natalie Smith
- Mixed R5 10m Air Rifle Prone – Qualifications tomorrow: Mark Bradley and Luke Cain
- Mixed R6-50m Rifle Prone – Qualifications tomorrow: Anton Zappelli and Natalie Smith
Relevant results:
Mixed P3-25m Pistol – SH1 – Standings
1st SWE NORBERG Joackim 12
2nd CHN HUANG Xing 11
3rd KOR LEE Ju Hee 9
4th AUS PITT Christopher 8
Women’s R2-10m Air Rifle Standing – SH1 – Standings
1st SVK VADOVICOVA Veronika 207.8
2nd CHN ZHANG Cuiping 206.3
3rd CHN YAN Yaping 183.6
4th KOR LEE Yunri 164.1
5th AUS SMITH Natalie 142.5
