Queensland's Dane Sampson came within a whisker of breaking his third Australian National record in two months when winning the Open 10m Air Rifle gold medal at the Brisbane Cup Rifle and Pistol Championships at the Brisbane International Shooting Centre today.
Sampson, from Coominya, has twice broken the men's 50m Rifle Three Positions Australian National record during this year's Performance Series before being a mere 0.4 points off breaking his men's 10m Air Rifle Final Australian National record today.
Sampson tallied 251.3 points to capture the gold medal by a narrow 0.9 point margin ahead of his Australian Tokyo Olympic Games team-mates, the South Australian pair of Jack Rossiter (250.4 points) and Katarina Kowplos (227.7 points).
While Sampson was unable to re-set a new men's 10m Air Rifle Final record benchmark, his score would have easily won the gold medal at the 2018 World Championships.
Russia's Sergey Kamenskiy was victorious at the 2018 World Championships with a score of 248.3 - a clear three points behind Sampson's effort today.
The Open 10m Air Rifle Final was also noteworthy with Para Shooter, Queensland's Glen McMurtrie qualifying for the Open final where he finished seventh.
Jack Rossiter later gained revenge over Sampson when he partnered with his sister Tori to win the Mixed 10m Air Rifle Teams event with a tense 16-14 victory over Sampson and Kowplos in the gold medal match. Victoria's Elise Collier and South Australia's Alex Hoberg won the bronze medal.
Victoria's Sergei Evglevski showed his class again when claiming gold in the men's 25m Rapid Fire Pistol final.
After a shaky start where he was level with ACT's Thomas Ashmore after the first three series of shots, Evglevski was a model of consistency in the remaining five series to tally 29 points, six clear of Ashmore (23 points) and Queensland's Bruce Dimond (11 points).
NSW's Dan Repacholi collected his second gold medal of the Championship when comfortably winning the 50m Pistol.
Repacholi, who won gold in the Mixed 10m Pistol Teams event yesterday, registered 542 points in beating Queensland's Alfio Casagrande (517) by 25 points with NSW's Damian Dowling (513 points) placed third.
Tomorrow's third and final day of competition will see the Open 50m Rifle Prone, women's 25m Sports Pistol and the men's 10m Air Pistol finals.
