Vitalina Batsarashkina


Vitalina Igorevna Batsarashkina is a Russian sports shooter. She won the silver medal in the women's 10 metre air pistol event at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She has also won gold, silver and bronze medals at the 2018 World Championships.

Sports career

Early career

Batsarashkina had a more masculine upbringing. She has been fishing since she was 6 and has been driving UAZs since she was 12. Her father and grandfather taught her shooting, she went hunting with his grandfather at age 10. However, she preferred pistol in her later career. She started professional sports shooting at age 12, coached by former sports shooter Natalia Kudrina.

International career

In international events, Batsarashkina participates in the 10 m and 25 m pistol disciplines. Her first notable international success was at the 2014 European Junior Championships in Moscow, reaching the third place in the 10 m air pistol event and collecting 179.2 points in the final. In the same year and in the same discipline she finished second at the World Junior Championships in Granada, collecting 198.2 points in the final. In 2015, Batsarashkina won gold at the Junior World Cup in Suhl, progressing to 200.2 points in the 10 m pistol final. She also won silver in the 25 m final, winning one point. She got another gold medal at the European Junior Championships in Maribor, now in the 25 m event, collecting seven points. At the 2015 ISSF World Cup in Gabala, she finished second in the 25 m event with one point at the end.
Batsarashkina participated at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She qualified to the final with the best result, but failed to win gold as Chinese Zhang Mengxue finished with an Olympic record. With that said, Batsarashkina won her first silver medal in the women's 10 metre air pistol event.
She won her first gold medal at the 10 m European Championships in Győr, in the team event. Before that she also won medals at the 10 m European Championships in Maribor, in the mixed team and team event. At the 2018 ISSF World Shooting Championships, the Russian collected gold, silver and bronze medal in the mixed 10 m air pistol, 25 m pistol and 10 m team air pistol event. In the mixed event she partnered with Artem Chernousov, who was also her partner in the European Championships.