Two-out-of-two. Great Britain couldn’t have asked for a better start at the 2015 ISSF World Cup Final in Shotgun, currently underway at the Olympic Shooting Center in Nicosia (CYP).
A couple of hours after Amber Hill victory in the Skeet Women event, 30-year old Steven Scott prevailed over China’s Pan Qiang in the Double Trap Men Gold medal match, claiming the top of the podium with a 27-to-25 hits win.
As both athletes suffered some mistakes in the central section of the match, Scott was then able to shutter his last 16 targets, overtaking Pan definitely and sailing towards the 1st place and the Gold medal.
“Very happy! Very happy!” Said an enthusiastic Scott right after the last target. “I felt a little nervous missing the first one, especially because Pan beat me the last time we met here in Cyprus. Unfortunately for him today it was my time!”
“My shooting was not consistent during the qualifications, but I managed to keep my head in the game, place a couple of 29s in the last rounds and I was really pleased with that. In the final, then, anything can happen. The weather, the ground and the target were great.” Scott continued.
Intermediate medal standings after 2 out of 5 events
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GBR |
2 | 2 | ||
| 2 | CHN |
1 | 1 | ||
| 2 | THA |
1 | 1 | ||
| 4 | IND |
1 | 1 | ||
| 4 | USA |
1 | 1 | ||
| 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 |
“It’s pretty amazing!” He concluded, talking about the two Gold medals Great Britain gained in one day. “Obviously Amber led the way, but I was thinking about it in the back of my head, jokingly, and then it came to life.”
Different event, same anthem... The podium of the Double Trap Men event. #ISSFWCF pic.twitter.com/nDWCbnQLkE
— ISSF (@ISSF_Shooting) October 17, 2015
Both Scott and Pan qualified with an almost perfect semifinal score of 29, distancing themselves from India’s Asab Mohd and from a second British shooter, Tim Kneale, the Silver medallist at the World Championship held in Lonato (ITA) last month, who both qualified for the Bronze medal match with 28 semifinal hits.
There, Mohd placed a perfect performance, hitting all of his 30 targets against Kneale 27, and pocketing an international medal for the first time in his career.
Out of the medal matches, People’s Republic of China’s Hu Binyuan finished 5th with 27, despite qualifying for the semifinal with the overall best score of 144 hits; Italy’s Antonino Barillà placed 6th also with 27 targets.
The ISSF World Cup Final will continue tomorrow with the Skeet Men event, whose final phase is scheduled at 1:30 PM (UTC+3). All the finals will be streamed lived on the ISSF website: http://www.issf-sports.org/pages/livestream.ashx.