De La Forest secures world record at shooting World Cup

Frenchman Tanguy De La Forest broke the R4 (mixed 10m air rifle standing SH2) finals world record at the 2015 IPC Shooting World Cup in Stoke Mandeville, Great Britain, on Tuesday (31 March) as shooters further hone their skills before Rio 2016.

De La Forest (211.7), who had already shown good form in the event by winning bronze at the 2014 Worlds, beat Ukrainian European Champion Vasyl Kovalchuk (210.3) into silver.

After a close first three rounds, De La Forest pulled away from Kovalchuk to improve on the previous record by .1, set by South Korea’s Kim Geunsoo at the Incheon 2014 Asian Para Games in October.

Great Britain’s Ryan Cockbill (188.6) picked up bronze on a great day for the hosts, which also saw Paralympic and World’s gold medallist Matt Skelhon take victory in R3 (mixed 510m rifle prone SH1).

Skelhon successfully fended off a challenge from Slovakia’s Veronika Vadovicova to claim his first win of 2015.

Skelhon (211.8) finished ahead of Vadovicova (211.5), who had already shown her form on Monday (30 March) with her own gold medal.

In what was a tense competition at the birthplace of the Paralympic Movement, Vadovicova led until the final round when she faltered with a 9.9. Skelhon made his move, shooting a 10.8 to claim the win by the narrowest of margins.

France’s Didier Richard (190.1) collected his second medal of the competition with bronze.

Over in the falling target pistol event, Oleksii Denysiuk secured Ukraine’s first gold of the competition ahead of Great Britain’s Roy Carter and Azerbaijan’s Akbar Muradov with silver and bronze respectively.

Competition concludes in Stoke Mandeville on Wednesday (1 April).

Full results are available at IPC Shooting’s website as well as live results provided by IPC Shooting’s Official Results and Target Systems Provider, Sius.