Paralympics 2012 Shooting

Sparks

From the ISSF site (with permission):

ISSF PRESIDENT OLEGARIO VAZQUEZ RAÑA AWARDED CHINA'S ZHANG THE 1ST PARALYMPIC GOLD

The ISSF President Olegario Vazquez Raña, followed the competition at the venue with the ISSF Secretary General Franz Schreiber, and awarded the first Gold medal of the 2012 Paralympic Games together with the President of the International Paralympic Committee Sir Philip Craven.

The Chinese shooter Zhang Cuiping scored a record to secure the first medal of the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. The ISSF President Olegario Vazquez Raña participated in the awarding of the very first medal, congratulating the athlete for the excellent result.

The Chinese shooter Zhang Cuiping won the first medal of the 2012 Paralympic Games in London, by setting a new world record in the women's R2-10m Air Rifle Standing SH1 at the Royal Artillery Barracks.

24-year-old Zhang Cuiping played a great match, finishing with 500.9 points, well clear of Germany's Manuela Schmermund who closed the match in second with Australian Natalie Smith taking Bronze.

...

Elizabeth Kosmala, the oldest competitor at London 2012 aged 70, ended up in eighth place in the final, with an overall score of 488.7 points.

continued...

Marco Dalla Dea

Don't forget, Sean Baldwin is up shooting for Ireland tomorrow and Saturday:

Sean's schedule of events:
Men's R1-10m Air Rifle Standing-SH1 - Royal Artillery Barracks - Friday, 31st August 09:00
Mixed R3-10m Air Rifle Prone-SH1 - Royal Artillery Barracks - Saturday, 1st September 13:15
Mixed R6-50m Rifle Prone-SH1 - Royal Artillery Barracks - Tuesday, 4th September 09:00
Men's R7-50m Rifle 3 Positions-SH1 - Royal Artillery Barracks - Wednesday, 5th September 09:00

Sparks

From the IPC website:

Zhang Cuiping sets new world record




China’s Zhang Cuiping set a world record and won the first gold medal at the London 2012 Paralympic Games, while Korea’s Park Seakyun won a shoot-off to win shooting’s first men’s event.

Zhang won the first gold medal at the London 2012 Paralympic Games, breaking a world record in the women’s R2-10m air rifle standing SH1 shooting competition.

Zhang won with a world record score of 500.9, while Manuela Schmermund of Germany won the silver medal and Australia’s Natalie Smith won a bronze medal.

After setting a Paralympic record of 396 in the qualification round, Zhang started the final in ominous fashion, scoring a 10.7 and a 10.6 (out of a possible 10.9) with her first two shots.

continued...

Sparks

There's an automated twitter feed for the Paralympic shooting for those who are interested:
https://twitter.com/L2012Shooting

You should also be able to watch it live here (as well as on Channel4):
http://www.paralympic.org/Events/London2012

Sparks

And they're off... results should be coming up here: http://www.london2012.com/paralympics/shooting/event/men-r1-10m-air-rifle-standing-sh1/phase=shm101900/index.html

edit: Yup, they are, but the page doesn't seem to be auto-updating for me, but hitting refresh works well enough

Sparks

596 currently leading the field. That's mad - the Irish record for air rifle is 590!

Sparks

Looks like it was 589 to make the finals. Sean didn't come close to that, but he has three more matches yet to come...

Sparks

Not just 589 - 589 and a shootoff...

tac foley

The paralympian Gold Medallist Matt Skellhon is a fellow club member here in UK. His skill is totally awesome to watch, and he only took up air rifle less than two years before the Beijing Games.

More power to ALL their elbows!

tac

Sparks

Air rifle prone this afternoon - it took a perfect 600/600 just to make the finals. The six 599s didn't even get a shoot-off for a look-in. Sean's 589 was down at the bottom of the field unfortunately, but hopefully he'll do better in the 50m shooting on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Full scores here.

Sparks

50m Prone Scores are in. Sean missed the finals by just four points, but placed much higher than in the air rifle matches, finishing just outside the top third. Damn good performance for his first paralympics. One more shoot to go tomorrow...

Sparks

Sean gets a mention from TheJournal.ie:

In addition, Sean Baldwin placed 18th out of 49 competitors in the mixed R6-50m rifle prone-SH1. It was Baldwin’s best performance of the Paralympics, as he recorded a personal best of 585.

However he narrowly missed out on a place in the eight-man final by a margin of four marks, and afterwards, he said: “I’m happy with that performance in tricky conditions. I was aiming for 590 as I reckoned that would be the qualifying mark for the final but I am satisfied with the PB and I am well set up for my final competition tomorrow”.

Sparks

Another nice mention of Sean in TheJournal.ie today:

Following his encouraging 18th place finish yesterday, Sean Baldwin is in action again at 9am today, as he competes in the 50m Rifle 3 positions SH1 qualifiers.

Sparks

Live scores for Sean's match are here...

Sparks

1112 and 17th place for Sean. Not a bad result for his first games, not bad at all.