At the Paris 2024 Olympics, U.S. shooting athlete Sagen Maddalena walked away from the Chateauroux Shooting Range with a fourth place finish in the Women’s 10m Air Rifle event on Monday, July 29.
Maddalena earned her spot in the eight-person final after taking seventh place in the Women’s 10m Air Rifle qualification round on Sunday, July 28.
After the first series of shots in the final, Maddalena was in fifth place with a score of 52.3, including a fine 10.8 shot. Huang Yuting of China was in the lead with 53.0, and she wouldn’t relinquish the top spot until the end of the final.
In the second series, Maddalena fell to seventh place, then jumped back to fifth after a 10.5 shot, ending the series with a score of 104.3. China’s Huang remained in the lead with a score of 105.5.
Next was the beginning of the single shot series. Maddalena fired a pair of 10.2 shots, falling to sixth place with a score of 124.7.
During the subsequent shot series, Norway’s Jeanette Duestad was eliminated.
As for Maddalena, she fired a 10.4 and 10.8 to jumped back in fifth place, tied with India’s Ramita Ramita. Maddalena then moved up to fourth place with a score of 145.9.
At this point, the crowd began to get excited for a shoot-off, which saw Ramita eliminated after a duel with France’s Oceanne Muller.
Six athletes remained for next series. Maddalena fired 10.8—her second 10.8 in a row—moving up to fourth place with a score of 167.1. Next, Alexandra Le of was Kazakhstan eliminated.
For her 17th shot, Maddalena fired a 10.5, keeping her in fourth place.
Maddalena then fired a 10.5, still in fourth place, with France’s Muller eliminated for fifth place.
Now it was down to four shooters, with Maddalena needing one point to get into medal position. She fired a 10.4 after Swiss shooter Audrey Gogniat fired a 10.9. The next shot was for the fourth position. Maddalena fired a 9.8 and was thus eliminated, and she had to settle for fourth place with a final score of 207.7.
She was only 1.4 points away from securing a podium finish.
The Women’s 10m Air Rifle medalists at the Paris 2024 Olympic games are Audrey Gogniat of Switzerland taking bronze with 230.3, silver medalist Huang Yuting of China with 251.8 and Ban Hyojin of South Korea also with 251.8, claiming the gold after regulation during a tiebreaker shoot-off, securing victory by a tenth of a point, 10.4-10.3.
Ban's 251.8 score equaled the Olympic record set by Chinese shooter Qian Yang at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
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