SUCCESSFUL HIT AFTER A LONG PAUSE

Azerbaijani shooters have repeatedly demonstrated successful performance in shooting sport events. Nigar Nasirova's bronze medal at the World Shooting Championship gives rise to thoughts on the perspective development of this discipline in the country.

In the 1990s, despite the successful performance of Azerbaijani shooters, their victories did not lead to the development of a new generation of shooters. For many years our athletes could not get the top medals at major international competitions, except at the Islamic Solidarity Games. The last victory among adults in the world championships was back in 2002.

Cause for optimism

Nigar Nasirova's performance is encouraging. Ft the World Championship held in Cairo, she took the third place in the 50m event with 5.6-pistol. In individual competition among the women athletes, she scored 539 points.

Nasirova has been attracting attention since the youth competitions. For example, at the 2006 World Championship in Moscow she won silver in the individual race, and in 2007 she brought a bronze medal to her team at the international tournament in Germany. At the 2019 European Games in Minsk, Nigar was not among the medalists, however. The Cairo World Cup result is the best achievement of her sports career.

Believe and practice!

Nigar Nasirova shared her impressions of the championship with R+: "I agree that this result is one of the most significant achievements in my career. The coaching staff and the people who supported me deserve a lot of credit for this medal. It is difficult to achieve success in our sport. I always enjoyed the performance of Irada Ashumova. Today she is my personal trainer. I think the potential of Aerbaijan in shooting is great. You just need to believe and practice in order to achieve high results as there is a great competition there. During the pandemic we fell far behind. But I believe in the success of our athletes in the future."

Silver from Cairo

Ruslan Lunev is another athlete from Azerbaijan show demonstrated successful performance at the Cairo World Shooting Championship. He won a silver medal in the 25m large-calibre pistol event. He became the second strongest athlete of the tournament only one step away from the gold medal. Lunev scored 584 points on 60 shots.

This is not the Azerbaijani athlete's first success in 2022. Back in September, Lunev got a high score at the European 2022 Championship in Wroclaw, Poland. With 574 points in the men's 25m standard pistol event, Lunev took the first place in the men's event.

Lunev is the son of the Olympic shooting medallist Irada Ashumova. His first coach was his parents. Today Ruslan Lunev continues the family tradition demonstrating successful performance himself.