Turner Finishes Ninth at World Cup USA
OutdoorHub 04.02.14
Three-time Olympian Jason Turner (Rochester, N.Y., pictured right) came oh-so-close to qualifying for the Men’s Free Pistol Final at the International Shooting Sports Federation (ISSF) World Cup USA today in Fort Benning, Ga. So close in fact, that the last position in the Final was to be decided between Turner and Xuan Vinh Hoang of Vietnam, who both scored a 557 in qualification. The tie-breaker for the last Finals position was decided by seven “inner tens” – inner tens are only used in tie-breaking situations and are based on the number of hits to a smaller, concentric ring inside of the ten ring on a target. Hoang bested Turner in inner tens, 14x to 7x.
Also on the line for the United States were James Henderson (Midland, Ga.) of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) and Will Brown (Twin Falls, Idaho). Henderson shot an impressive Finals score of 199.5 at the Pistol Selection Match in early March to earn his trip to this World Cup – the second-best recorded mark since the new Finals format began in January 2013, and just shy of the mark of 200.7 set by reigning two-time Olympic gold medalist Jongoh Jin of South Korea at the last summer’s Granada (Spain) World Cup. Aside from Jin’s score, Henderson’s score in that Final was 2.8 points higher than any other winner on the World Cup circuit last year – even higher than today’s gold medal winner Anton Gourianov of Russia who shot a 191.3 to win.
Henderson shot a 539 in qualification to finish in 23rd place today. Brown finished in 27th place with a score of 544.
The Men’s Free Pistol silver medal went to Tomoyuki Matsuda of Japan and the bronze medal went to Andrija Zlatic of Serbia.
Men’s Rapid Fire Pistol also completed Stage One of two today with Stage Two and Finals to be contested tomorrow. Emil Milev (Temple Terrace, Fla.) is currently in second place with 293 points and Keith Sanderson (Colorado Springs, Colo.) is in third with 292. Brad Balsley (Uniontown, Pa. /USAMU) is in 26th place with 279 points.
Men’s Prone Rifle also completed its two elimination relays today with qualification and Finals to be contested tomorrow. All three U.S. athletes will move on to the qualification relay based on their scores today. Michael McPhail (Darlington, Wis. /USAMU) finished in fourth in his relay with a score of 622.1. Eric Uptagrafft (Phenix City, Ala. / USAMU) and Nick Mowrer (Butte, Mont., pictured right) competed in the same relay and scored 625 and 622 respectively for fourth and tenth place in their relay. All shooters will start at zero in tomorrow’s qualification.
Mowrer has competed in four World Cups throughout his career…as a member of the Pistol National Team. At this World Cup, Mowrer became the first American competitor to compete in international competition in different disciplines.
More than 430 athletes from 53 countries have come to Fort Benning to compete in ten Olympic events in the Rifle and Pistol disciplines. Follow along live and see complete scores from all of these events online here: http://www.issf-sports.org/calendar/championship.ashx?cshipid=1510.
