Maria Grozdeva, President of the Bulgaria Shooting Union, wins her 16th World Cup Gold medal in Rio

Two-time Olympic Gold medallist Maria Grozdeva of Bulgaria came back atop of an ISSF World Cup podium six years after her last victory, in Belgrade (SRB) in 2010.

In the finals hall of the Olympic Shooting Centre, the venue that will host the Olympic Shooting competition of Rio 2016, Grozdeva prevailed over the current leader of the World Ranking and Granada 2014 ISSF World Champion, Zhang Jingjing of the People’s Republic of China.

After qualifying with the best semifinal score, Grozdeva led the medal match since the very first series, shooting consistently all along the final and securing the 1st place with the final score of 8 points to 2.

"It’s the first time that the President of a shooting federation wins a World Cup Gold medal," declared Grozdeva, who founded the Bulgarian Shooting Union in 2013. "Actually, I’m more a shooter than a president now, as I’m training really hard for the next World Cup stages in Munich and Baku. But I am also very lucky to have many people helping me with my job. We started from scratch three years ago, so we obviously have a lot of things to do." She concluded.

In the Bronze medal match, Sunday’s 10m Air Pistol Women Gold medallist Olena Kostevych bested Germany’s Monika Karsch, claiming four consecutive points in the last two series to seal the 8-points-to-6 victory. Currently, Kostevych is the only athlete to secure multiple medals in this World Cup stage.

Four shooters left the competition after the semifinal phase. Switzerland’s Heidi Diethelm Gerber, who finished 6th in the 10m Air Pistol Women event three days ago, concluded 6th with 16 points. China’s Cao Lijia, participating here in her fourth World Cup event, placed 6th with 15, followed by another Bulgarian athlete, Antoaneta Boneva, 7th with 14 points, and by Russian Federation’s Ekaterina Korshunova with 13.

The ISSF World Cup stage in Rio de Janeiro will continue tomorrow with the 50m Rifle Prone Men final, scheduled at 11:00 (UTC-3).

For the 25m Pistol Women complete results click here.

For the schedule of the competition and the medal standings click here.

For editorial photos click here.

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