Daniel Repacholi has staked an early claim for selection to Tokyo 2020 after winning the first men’s 10m Air Pistol final in the Tokyo Olympic Games pistol nomination event.
The four-time Olympian from Cessnock, NSW showed his class when scoring 240.1 points ahead of West Australians Bailey Groves (234.5) and Mike Giustiniano (211.9) at the Brisbane International Shooting Centre over the weekend.
Earlier, Repacholi qualified for the final with an impressive score of 569 – six shots ahead of Groves (563).
Repacholi attended Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympic Games and indicated that he would retire after winning the men’s 10m Air Pistol gold medal at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, but the lure of another Olympics proved to be too powerful.
Repacholi said he has been working on ensuring he begins his finals in strong fashion.
“I got away to a good start, but the last few shots weren’t what I was after,” he said.
In the women’s 25m Pistol final, Victoria’s Elena Galiabovitch (28 targets) claimed her second gold medal of the weekend when scoring a comfortable victory ahead of South Australia’s Alison Heinrich (21) and Queensland’s Civon Smith (16).
Galiabovitch won the women’s 10m Air Pistol on Friday and was runner-up in the event yesterday.
Galiabovitch, a 2016 Rio Olympian, qualified for the final in second position after completing the session behind Smith.
The Melbourne doctor, who won the silver medal in the event at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, found the right medicine for the final while Smith was unable to match her qualifying form.
The pistol shooters will contest the next round of the Olympic Games nomination events in Brisbane on March 6, 7 and 8.
