Olympic quota winners Martin Strempfl of Austria and India’s Yashaswini Singh Deswal have been declared Online Shooters of the Year in 10m air rifle and air pistol respectively.
The two winners were chosen on the basis of six editions of the International Online Shooting Championship (IOSC) organized by indianshooting.com during the year.
Set to turn out for his country at next year Tokyo Olympics, Martin was a regular face in the IOSCs. The World No.34 won the top spot by some distance with 11 points followed by Etienne Germond of France and India Yash Vardhan with five points each.
Martin tends to reserve his best for competitions in India. At the 2019 ISSF World Cup in New Delhi, the 36-year-old had finished 4th to win the Olympic quota. At the IOSCs too, Martin was in top form to win the 1st and 4th editions, for which he was awarded three points each. He was awarded two points each for finishing runner-up at the 2nd and 6th IOSC, and one point for claiming bronze at the 5th IOSC.
Martin termed the IOSCs as the perfect training opportunityÔÇØ.
Yashaswini has had a brilliant run of late with a gold at last year ISSF World Cup at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and as a junior at the 2017 World Championships in Suhl, Germany. The IOSCs were an extension of the good run for the country Olympic quota winner as she came on top with 9 points. Following her was another Indian Amanpreet Singh with 5 points.
The 23-year-old Yashaswini was virtually unstoppable in the three IOSCs she was a part of and walked away with the top honours and three points from each edition to make it a treble. A proof of the World No.4 domination can be gauged from the 5th IOSC in which she registered the best qualification score and led the final from the start to make it a wire-to-wire win.
Hugely appreciative, Yashaswini said, Online shooting is a good platform to train and compete, especially in this Covid-19 era. I would like to thank indianshooting.com for organizing the competitions.
Former India shooter and the architect of online shooting Shimon Sharif, said, Both Martin and Yashaswini were very consistent throughout the year and we are happy that they along with other Olympic quota winners could use our innovation of online shooting to prepare for the Olympics next yearÔÇØ.