Artur Mingazov: World Championship gold in exchange for a cellphone 09.08.2010

All the medals were earned in team classification. Besides Vasily Mosin placed second individually, winning double silver by that. Mingazov finished eighth in individual trial.

Perhaps the World Championship in Munich was one of the most successful tournaments for the Tatarstan shooters. It was a rare thing when we won three medals of the World Championship, most often we settled for a pair of medals of Svetlana Demina. And now male shooters move to the front of the sports scene. It’s no secret that it’s the Russian women who carry heavy burden of winning medals in sports.
We’ve talked to Artur Mingazov directly at his arrival from the World Championship.

- Artur, we didn’t expect to see you in Kazan so soon. The Championship is still on the run. Were you sent home in groups?
- Yes. This year the World Shooting Championship was combined. Trap shooters and air rifle shooters had their events at the same time. For instance the double trap shooters like Vasily Mosin and I flew back from Germany with a group of the air rifle shooters. And Svetlana Demina from Kazan and Ekaterina Ponedelnikova from Tetyushi stayed in Germany.

- National media coverage of the Championship was awful. Sport-Express posted the complete result list of the Championship according to which the Russian junior team placed allegedly second losing seven points to their rivals from Italy and as for the Rusian national team it finished seventh. And on the web-site of the Russian Shooting Federation you were named Artyom by mistake.
- Well, if there are such mistakes we need to put the record straight. The men’s team made up of Vasily Mosin, Vitaly Fokeyev and Mikhail Leybo finished as a runner-up. Their total score is 149 hits. The US athletes won the title establishing a world record with 433 targets. And the British shooters finished third. It was Vasily who drove the final nail into their coffin and won the individual silver medal. Notably in the qualifiers he shot 140 targets of 150 possible and repeated the world record. But his performance in the final was weaker. Mosin was outdistanced by American shooter Richmond and reached by Chinese athlete Hu Bignyuan whom he left behind in the shoot-off. Speaking about our performance I just say that it was steady enough. Our leader Artyom Nekrasov finished fifth (138 points), Maksim Lazarev and I shot 136 targets each and tied seventh-eighth places. As a common practice the one who shoots the last series best gets a higher place but surprisingly Lazarev and I shot the same number of targets in each series. As a result he was placed higher than me in the final protocol just because his last name is above mine alphabetically. But yet our steady performance let us outrun the Italian team without any trouble. We were losing ten points but then we beat them on three points hitting 410 targets against their 407. As for the incorrect spelling of my name I just can say that I’m still Artur.

- Thanks for clarifying. You are a champion now, ate you happy?
- Sure I am. Though there was an unpleasant experience. I lost my cellphone there. It’s the second time I lose it, last year there was the same story during competitions. But still the gold medal in exchange for the cell phone is a good bargain I think.
We can just rejoice at the new champion’s optimism. All the more so if we remember the start of the year. Because of lack of funds Artur didn’t train in winter and later he skipped a few international competitions that give you a chance to move up in national rankings to win cap. The situation changed drastically after the European Championship that took place in Kazan at the beginning of July. Being the host Tatarstan got the right to put forward a few participants out of competition; Mingazov was entrusted to compete in the home shooting range. He placed second among Russian shooters. And later on he moved up in national rankings after the Russian Cup final in Moscow and won cap. Here’s the result – he has won a gold medal. However there is nothing to wonder about as Artur has a champion’s spirit in genes. His father was a trap shooter as well and in 1994 Artur’s uncle Artur Kabayev became the first field hockey champion of Russia among the Tatarstan educatees. Though he topped the Championship as a member of the SKA Samara team where he was doing his military service. Nowadays his uncle is children’s field hockey coach and balances his coaching activity with refereeing at national and international championships. However his nephew who is international master of sports surpassed his uncle’s sports achievements.