The 2012 Olympic Champion Jessica Rossi of Italy finished atop of the women’s Trap podium at the 2017 ISSF Shotgun World Championship in Moscow, Russia.
The 25-year old Italian athlete scored 43 hits out of 50 targets in the final, to beat Rio 2016 Olympic champion Catherine Skinner of Australia, second with 41 hits, and the 2008 and 2012 Olympic silver medalist Zuzana Rehak Stefecekova of Slovakia, third with 32 hits. The defending champion, Spain’s Fatima Galvez, closed the match in fourth place with 27 hits.
Rossi - who earned her third senior world title today, adding to a junior world title and to 8 world cup podiums — had won her last ISSF medal back in 2013.
“Today it has been a great day, it’s a new start,” said Rossi. “I accumulated a lot of tension in the last years, but I finally made it. I am back on an ISSF podium.”
“Something clicked when I won the new Mixed Team Event competition - along with my teammate Giovanni Pellielo - at the European Championship in Baku in July. That victory was a game changer, and gave me the right motivation.”
“It has bee a tough final. I’ve been dueling with the reigning Olympic champion since the first shot, and right to the end of the match. All of the finalists are great athletes, so I had to be extremely concentrated.”
Rossi shot neck and neck with Skinner since the beginning of the final. Skinner gained two targets of advantage half way through the match, but Rossi came back in the lead after the 41st shot, managing a two-target margin right to the end.
“I won’t lie: I came here to climb on the podium, and I climbed it to the top, it couldn’t be better,” Rossi added.
“Now I am moving on. Today’s victory qualifies me for this year’s ISSF Wolrd Cup Final. It’s the first time since 2013. I will give my best there, I have been missing that competition. I have been missing this feeling.”
Rossi’s victory also pushed the Italian team (Rossi, Silvana Stanco, Alessia Iezzi) upon the third step of the teams’ podium, with a combined score of 203 hits.
Ashley Carroll (6th in the individual event), Caitilin Barney Weinheimer and Corey Cogdell won USA the teams’ world title with 203 hits, while silver went to Finland thanks to Marika Salmi (5th in the individual event), Satu Makela-Nummela and Mopsi Veromaa, with 203 hits as well (since all the top-3 teams closed the match with an equal score, the final ranking was decided by the count-back tie-braking rule).
640 athletes from 76 nations are competing in the 2017 ISSF Shotgun World Championship, held at the Fox Lodge shooting club in Moscow (RUS) from the 30th of August through the 10th of September. The even will continue tomorrow - September 3 - with the men’s and junior men’s Trap finals.