Rapid-Fire Pistol, 25 metres, Men

Rapid-fire pistol had a major change in its format for London 2012. Unlike previous years, and all other shooting event in London, qualifying scores did not carry over to the final, and the final started as a clean slate. In the final, shooters used a “hit-or-miss” point system, with elimination starting after the fourth series.

The gold medal was won by Cuba’s Leuris Pupo, who qualified third, and was only mediocre in his first final series, with 3 of 5 points. But he was perfect on his next three series, and then scored 4 of 5 in his final two series for 34 final points, which equaled the world best for the final round. This was Pupo’s fourth Olympic Games and his victory was the first ever for Cuba in shooting. Silver went to India’s Vijay Kumar while Ding Feng of China won bronze. The world’s #1 ranked shooter coming into London was Aleksey Klimov of Russia. Klimov posted a world record for the qualifying round, with 592, but in the fourth series of the final he hit only 2 of 5 targets, dropping him out of the medals.