Vitalina Batsarashkina wins gold with Olympic record

, Sports

Sports Desk, Barta24.com | 2023-09-01 14:31:45

Vitalina Batsarashkina takes gold in the women's 10m air pistol with an Olympic record of 240.3. She beat Antoaneta Kostadinova (239.4) into second despite the Bulgarian leading until the very last shot.

Batsarashkina upgraded her Rio 2016 silver with ROC's first gold medal of Tokyo 2020. JIANG Ranxin of the People's Republic of China who qualified top with an Olympic record, won bronze (218.0). She had matched Greece's Anna Korakaki's three-year-old record of 587 points to lead qualifying.

Nina Salukvadze of Georgia made history by becoming the first athlete to compete in nine Olympics and announced her retirement to Russian media after failing to qualify for the finals.

Batsarashkina, ranked 10th in the world, was third in qualifying and moved ahead of Kostadinova with a 10.7 with three shots to go. The 25-year-old Russian closed out with a 10.2 to earn the gold she just missed in Rio.

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