SINGAPORE – The national women’s pistol shooters were spot-on again as they followed up their historic exploit at the ISSF World Cup series in South Korea in July 2022 with another gold medal in the women’s 25m pistol team event, this time in Indonesia.
On Saturday, Teo Shun Xie and sisters Teh Xiu Hong and Teh Xiu Yi beat South Korea’s Oh Min-kyung, Kwak Jung-hye and Hwang Seong-eun 16-6 in the final at the Senayan Shooting Range to extend their dominance at the International Shooting Sport Federation event.
Teo, 34, said: “It was another good experience, and each opportunity to compete is always a learning journey to improve ourselves.
“The key to winning gold again was trusting in the process and my teammates.”
For Xiu Yi, it was the perfect birthday present as she turns 27 on Wednesday.
She said: “I feel proud to be in this amazing team and have a sense of fulfilment at the same time because we are winning this as a team before they scrap this event from the World Cup (as it is not an Olympic event).
“With this win, I feel motivated to improve my performance for the upcoming competitions and it also reassures me that the techniques that I have been working on have helped me to perform under competition stress and anxiety.”
Meanwhile, her sister Xiu Hong also had another reason to rejoice after winning silver in the women’s 25m pistol. She was pipped 23-22 by Austria’s Sylvia Steiner in an exciting individual final.
Both shooters got off to a jittery start and she led 4-3 after two series of five shots, before Steiner registered 14 hits in her next 15 shots to surge ahead 17-14. Xiu Hong then levelled the scores at 18-18, before ultimately falling short. But she still earned valuable ranking points in the ongoing Olympic qualification period.
The 28-year-old said: “I was two hits behind going into the last series, which is quite a big gap with five shots left. My biggest chance of winning was to focus on my shooting process and I did just that.
“I had three hits and even though I didn’t win, I am satisfied, especially with all the nerves during the deciding series.
“I learnt a lot during that final... I believe that the results don’t really matter as much as the experience we had. I see these as practice for future competitions as it’s almost impossible to be able to recreate the same nerves and excitement we experience in finals.”
On Jan 31, Natanya Tan, Fernel Tan and Martina Veloso also bagged an air rifle women’s team silver at the World Cup in Jakarta, after being beaten 17-15 by Kazakhstan’s Alexandra Le, Anastassiya Grigoryeva and Yelizaveta Bezrukova in the final.
Singapore Shooting Association president Michael Vaz was pleased with the haul of one gold and two silvers, saying: “I think we did well. Individually, other than Xiu Hong, our female rifle and pistol shooters were also there or thereabouts in the finals or challenging for a place in the finals.
“Unlike the regional games, World Cups give our shooters more exposure against global rivals and hopefully, coupled with the hiring of our new pistol coach Lee Do-hee, it will help our team secure Paris 2024 qualification.”
