2024 Olympic Games, Day 4: Mikec and Arunovic win the first gold in shooting for Serbia, the Turks also win their first medal, silver in the 10m air pistol mixed team

Serbia Gold Air Pistol Mixed
The two are overjoyed: Zorana Arunovic (left) and Damir Mikec won gold in the 10m mixed team air pistol competition at the 2024 Olympics.

This is the first ever gold medal for Serbian sport shooters, and for Zorana Arunovic and her partner Damir Mikec: it is the crowning achievement of two long sporting careers. The 37-year-old shooter from Belgrade has been competing at international level since 2006. She was already world air pistol champion in 2010 and finished unluckily fourth at the Tokyo Olympics in the mixed team event, which was held for the first time at the time, together with Damir Mikec. Mikec won silver in Tokyo in the 10m air pistol singles (here his achievements from the ISSF database), travels with a diplomatic passport as a figurehead for his country, but has so far had no luck at the Olympics (e.g. in the 10m air pistol singles the day before yesterday with 7th place).

Olympic 2024: bad luck for the Turkish pair Sevval Tarhan and Yusuf Dikec. In the mixed team air pistol final they were defeated by the Serbs, who quickly caught up with them after taking the lead.

In the mixed team final against the Turkish pair Sevval Tarhan and YusufDikec, his last two shots of 10.5 and 10.7 secured victory for the Serbians.

Manu Bhaker and Sarabjot Singh of Team India 1 secured third place and the bronze medal. Bhaker had won the same medal in the women's 10m air pistol individual competition on Sunday. For the German air pistol shooters, the 2024 Olympics ended yesterday with 6th and 9th place in the mixed team air pistol competition. Before that, the men will start tomorrow with the qualification in the 50m rifle 3 positions (the final is on 1 August, with Italy's Danilo Dennis Sollazzo and Edoardo Bonazzi vying for qualification).

2024 Olympic Games : 10m air pistol mixed team, the medallists

Placement:
Medal:
Name:
Country:
Gold
🥇
Zorona Arunovic / Damir Mikec
Serbia
Silver
🥈
Sevval Tarhan / Yusuf Dikec
Turkey 2
Bronze
🥉
Manu Bhaker / Sarabjot Singh
India 1

Click here for the complete list of 10m air pistol mixed team results (preliminary results can be viewed above using the slider).

The 2024 Olympics continue on 2 August with the women's 25m pistol, before the men start tomorrow with qualifying in the 50m rifle 3 positions (the final is on 1 August, with Italy's Danilo Dennis Sollazzo and Edoardo Bonazzi competing).

Olympic Games 2024: trap men's final and trap women's qualification Day 1

Italian shooter Giovanni Pellielo at his eighth Olympics.

121 clay pigeons are not enough to qualify for the Olympic trap final. Unfortunately for Italy, both Mauro De Filippis and Giovanni Pellielo, 54 years old and in his eighth Olympics, made just four mistakes and exited the scene. Also out at 121 are the Spaniard Alberto Fernandez, the Turk Oguzhan Tuzun and the Englishman Matthew John Coward-Holley, the protagonists of recent seasons. Also left out is the outgoing Olympic champion, the Czech Jiri Liptak.

Four shooters are leading at 123: China's Qi Ying, Britain's Nathan Hales, Australia's James Willet and Sweden's Rickard Levin-Andersson, six at 122: Croatia's Giovanni Cernogoraz, America's Derrick Scott Mein, Guatemala's Jean Pierre Brol-Cardenas, China's Haicheng Yu, Morocco's Driss Haffari and Australia's Mitchell Iles. Shoot-offs decreed Brol Cardenas and Mein's entry into the final after 14 clay pigeons.

Jiri Liptak, Olympic trap champion in Tokyo in 2021, was eliminated in the 2024 preliminaries and will not be able to defend his gold medal this time.

Apart from Willet and Hales, these are not top level shooters, but the Olympics is often imponderable and so are sometimes the clay pigeons to be hit with only one round available in the final. After the first 10 clay pigeons Hales, Levin and Brol Cardenas were with full scores, Willet started badly with three consecutive errors. Levin made his first mistake on the 14th clay pigeon and Brol Cardenas on the next, Hales paid the price for the excitement of leading alone and made a mistake on the 16th clay pigeon, immediately followed by the Swede and the Guatemalan. Qi and Hales took the lead, while Willet shot a fourth zero. On the 18th clay pigeon Hales remained alone in the lead while Brol Cardenas shot a third zero. Willet made the fifth and sixth mistakes and left the group in sixth place with 19 clay pigeons. The eliminations began: Brol Cardenas missed the third clay pigeon but was saved by Mein, who missed the fifth and was destined for fifth place. Hales misses the 32nd clay pigeon. Levin ran into three consecutive errors and has to settle for the wooden medal. Qi committed the most classic of blunders (double zero) and Brol Cardenas cought up with him, Hales took the lead again with two clay pigeons. Zero for both Qi and the Guatemalan on the 40th clay pigeon, but it was Jean Pierre Brol Cardenas who took bronze and the gold remained a matter for Nathan Hales, who at this point had a three-clay pigeon lead over Ying Qi. The 28-year-old Englishman won 48 to 44, setting a new Olympic final record, one clay pigeon below his own record set last year at the World Cup in Lonato. In his career Hales won a silver medal at the World Championships in Osijek in 2022 and last year gold in Lonato and a bronze in the World Cup final in Doha.

Meanwhile, the women's trap event officially started this morning. Leading the provisional ranking after the first 75 shots were Spain's Mar Moline-Magrina, perfect with 75/75, and Fatima Galvez, second with 74/75. Silvana Maria Stanco was third with 73/75 while Jessica Rossi, still in the running, made three errors with 72.

Italy's Jessica Rossi placed second in the women's competition after the first half of the trap program. The London 2012 Olympic champion is also a three-time world championonly a few sport shooters can boast so many titles. She shoots with a Beretta over-and-under, as do more than half of the participating trap and skeet shooters.

The women's trap final is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon at 15:30. Here is the provisional list of results.

2024 Olympic Games: trap men, the medallists - all winners utilised a Beretta DT11

Placement:
Medal:
Name:
Country:
Gold
🥇
Nathan Hales
Great Britain
Silver
🥈
Qi Ying
China
Bronze
🥉
Jean-Pierre Brol Cardenas
Guatemala

2024 Olympic Game: snapshots of the 4th day of events

Some disappointment cannot be completely hidden: "India 1" with Manu Bakher and Sarabjot Singh won bronze in the mixed team 10m air pistol. Earlier, Bhaker had also won bronze in the individual 10m air pistol competition.
Yusuf Dikec (right), an air pistol shooter with international experience but no previous Olympic success, won the silver medal in the mixed event together with Ilayda Sevval Tarhan, the first ever medal for Turkey.
This is how inconspicuous clay pigeons appear. The target measures 110 mm in diameter, is 25 mm high and weighs 105 grams. In the final, the "flash pigeons" create a dust effect that is more visible to cameras and spectators.
In the ISSF House in Châteauroux, ISSF President Luciano Rossi (left) welcomes prominent guests every day, including active Olympic shooters and former stars such as Niccolò Campriani (three times gold medallist), who is now the sporting director of the Los Angeles 2028 shooting competitions, and Abhinav Bindra, India's first ever Olympic champion (10m air rifle in Beijing in 2008). The ISSF House is supported by first-class partners such as Beretta and RWS. At right, ISSF Secretary General Alessandro Nicotra di San Giacomo.
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