Review of 2023 ISSF competition: Stankiewicz earns breakthrough gold in women’s 10m air rifle after year of Chinese success

China’s Han Jiayu secured her first global title at the ISSF World Championships in Baku as she won gold in the women’s 10m air rifle competition.

The 21-year-old shooter totalled 251.4 points, with her 19-year-old fellow countryman Wang Zhilin taking silver on 250.2.

Mehuli Ghosh took bronze in the women’s final and secured a Olympic quota place for India with a score of 229.8.

It was a second Baku success for Han who had won the ISSF World Cup event in the Azerbaijan capital earlier in the year.

She was one of six women who each won a World Cup title in the discipline.

Eszter Meszaros of Hungary earned the first victory in Jakarta, with Britain’s Seonaid McIntosh earning the second in Cairo, followed by China’s Huang Yuting in Bophal.

China’s winning streak continued as Wang Zhilin secured victory in Lima before Han’s first success in Baku.

The final World Cup event – held in Rio de Janeiro a month after the World Championships – was won by India’s Elavenil Valarivan.

In the women’s 10m air rifle competition of the season at the World Cup Final in Doha it appeared for a while as if Han, Wang and 17-year-old world No.3 Yuling Huang might replicate the Chinese clean sweep achieved by their team-mates in the previous day’s women’s 10m pistol event.

But the picture changed late as Poland’s world No.12 Aneta Stankiewicz – sporting a distinct mauve-coloured rifle stock to match the facings on her shooting outfit – came through for a breakthrough victory.

Wang, Han and Huang had qualified first, second and fourth, with only France’s Oceanne Muller interrupting their dominance.

The 20-year-old French shooter, who finished fifth at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and won bronze at this year’s European Games, underlined her potential to be one of the home banner-carriers at next year’s Paris Games as she held her lead in the first set of five shots and reached the elimination rounds just 0.1 off a lead held by Huang.

She eventually finished fifth – but not before the departure of the world champion, Han.

Huang, whose elimination round shots included two 9.9s, eventually missed a medal by one place as Norway’s steadily improving European champion Jeanette Duestad brought her experience to bear in securing bronze.

Meanwhile Stankiewicz, at 28 the eldest shooter in the final, had moved into the lead after the second elimination round before producing round after round of consistently high scores, including a 10.8 and four 10.7s.

She secured the greatest triumph of her career so far with 253.3 points, as Wang, despite two concluding 10.7s, remained well off gold on 252.6.

“My first five shots weren’t the best so I had to run the girls,” Stankiewicz – who finished 15^th at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics – told ISSF TV. “My favourite shot was the 10.8, but there was a lot of 10.7s. It is all about the feeling inside you.”

Asked her reflection upon the fact that, despite being only 28, she was the eldest in the final, she replied with a laugh: “I don’t care! Maybe I am not the youngest but I have the big experience and I have to live with this!”