South Africa and Switzerland secure Rio 2016 spots

South Africa’s von Zeuner Kohne and Switzerland’s Paul Schnider punched their country’s first tickets to shooting competitions at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games on Tuesday (3 November) at the IPC Shooting World Cup in Fort Benning, USA.

Kohne and Schnider grabbed the opportunity with 10th and 11th place finishes respectively in P3 (mixed 25m pistol SH1). The World Cup in Fort Benning is the final chance for shooters to achieve quota places.

In the P3 medal matches, there was victory for Ukrainian Oleksii Denysiuk who took the win over Turkey’s European champion Korhan Yamac.

South Korea’s Chul Park claimed bronze ahead of Russian Andrey Lebedinskiy.

Slovakian world and European champion Veronica Vadovicova was in great form in R2 (women’s 10m air rifle standing SH1), taking her latest win of 2015.

Vadovicova (203.9) rarely shot below a 10.0 to seal gold, leading Norway’s Monica Lillehagen (200.9) onto her first podium of the year. With the silver, Lillehagen made sure of another ticket to Rio 2016 for Norway.

There was absolute delight for hosts USA, as Tammy Delano (180.4) held her nerve to take the first individual World Cup medal of her career with bronze.

“I’m pretty proud of how I did since I’ve been struggling with my standing position,” Delano told USA Shooting. “I just missed the quota [for Rio 2016], but I’m really happy with how the match went.

“I definitely need to control my thoughts a bit - that was the big thing in this match. I had more control over my thoughts and it’s been a rough year for me. My head was more into this one than [the most recent World Cup] in Australia. That was like a month after my dad passed away and that was on my mind, but this one was a bit better. I just need to keep going and trust the process.”

There was drama in R1 (men’s 10m air rifle standing SH1) as Slovenia’s Franc Pinter dominated throughout elimination, only to find himself level with South Korea’s Su Wan Kim heading into the final round.

It was Pinter (204.7) who emerged the victor, shooting a 10.6 and 10.1 as Wan (202.9) faltered with a 9.1 and 9.8.

Ukraine’s Iurii Stoiev and Great Britain’s Owen Burke claimed their country’s latest quota place for Rio 2016 with fourth and fifth place finishes respectively.

The 2015 IPC Shooting World Cup runs until 7 November and features nearly 180 athletes from 48 countries.

Wednesday’s action continues on the rifle range with R4 (mixed 10 air rifle standing SH2) and R8 (women’s 50m rifle three positions SH1).

A list of athletes who have obtained quota places for their country for Rio 2016 can be found at IPC Shooting's website.

Sport fans from around the world can buy their Rio 2016 tickets from authorised ticket resellers (ATRs).