Rio 2016. Illia Charheika: “I didn’t make rosy plans for the final, but I hankered for victory”

On the third day of the Olympiad our athletes were about to win the first medal for the National Team of Belarus.

It was shooting athlete Illia Charheika who came close to the victory podium. In 10m Air Rifle he was 6^th. Way back at the previous Olympic Games Charheika broke into the final top 8 with the 7^th result. Yesterday he leveled up to the 6^th position in overall standings.

“I can’t say I have succeeded. When it comes to the point, everyone wants to win. But finals are unpredictable events. Nevertheless, once you are in the final, so you deserve it. Qualification for the final was extremely stiff, and only intangibles could spot the winner among almost equal athletes”, - according to Illia after the final.

Illia had to compete with the most outstanding world athletes, including Italian Niccolo Campriani, Hungarian Peter Sidi, and Indian Abhinav Bindra. Among his principle rival Illia singles out Niccolo Campriani, the 28 year-old World champion and silver medalist of the London 2012. Illia asserted that none of the shooters showed his best performance because of excitement and stress.

“That’s too hard to bear such burden and play it cool. I didn’t think of London where I made successful attempts at the 1^st, 5^th, and 8^th tries. I was eager to show better results at Rio 2016. Concentration is the principle weapon in Shooting. My coach Sergei Martynov taught me to excel not only rivals, but myself as well, and enhance results with every new performance”.

Next Sunday Illia will shoot again. He is willing to pull up his skills and show his worth. 

Text by Uladzimir Zdanovich

Photo by Aliaksandr Semianiaka