Olympics-Shooting-Russian Batsarashkina follows Rio silver with Tokyo gold (updated)

Rio Silver

25/07/2021 04:18

(Writes through, adds details, quotes)
    TOKYO, July 25 (Reuters) - Russian shooter Vitalina
Batsarashkina won the women's 10-metre pistol event at the Tokyo
Olympics on Sunday to claim the gold medal that narrowly eluded
her five years ago in Rio.
    Batsarashkina mounted a spectacular charge over the closing
shots to win gold at the Asaka Shooting Range with an Olympic
record of 240.3. Bulgarian Antoaneta Kostadinova won silver with
239.4, while the bronze went to Jiang Ranxin of China.
    There was no dream medal for Georgian Nino Salukvadze, who
became the first female athlete to compete at nine Olympics. The
52-year-old, who won the 25m pistol gold at the 1988 Seoul
Games, did not get to the final and finished 31st.
    There was also disappointment for India with world number
one and number two Yashaswini Singh and Manu Bhaker failing to
even qualify for the final.
    Jiang had topped the preliminaries with an Olympic
qualifying record of 587 but Kostadinova looked primed for the
gold after grabbing an early lead in the final.
    But with Batsarashkina hot on her heels, Kostadinova
eventually succumbed to the pressure and managed a lowly nine,
her lowest score, in her final shot.
    Batsarashkina fired 10.4 to pip the Bulgarian to the gold.
    The 24-year-old said she was too focused on competition to
think of Rio, where she had finished behind China's Zhang
Mengxue.
    "I did not set myself a goal to win the gold here, or to be
one of the medallists or even reach the final. I just wanted to
shoot as well as I can," Batsarashkina said.
    Russian athletes are competing under the flag of the Russian
Olympic Committee (ROC) at the Tokyo Olympics this year as part
of sanctions for several doping scandals.
    Batsarashkina, who said she was comfortable with the
restrictions imposed at the Games due to the COVID-19 pandemic,
was amused by how people pronounced her name in Tokyo.
    "I'm always wondering how people would mispronounce my name
and I hear a new name all the time," she said with a smile at a
news conference.
    Athens Olympic champion Olena Kostevych of Ukraine finished
fourth, while Rio 25 metre pistol champion Anna Korakaki of
Greece came sixth.

 (Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; editing by
Stephen Coates/Peter Rutherford)
 ((amlan.chakraborty@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter:
@Amlan_Reuters))