The fourth and conclusive event of the day at the ISSF World Championship in Changwon (KOR) crowned 35-year-old shooter Alberto Fernandez of Spain, who won the second world title of his career.
Fernandez, who previously won the World Championship in Munich (GER) in 2010, only missed two of his 50 targets, prevailing over Slovakia’s two-time World Champion Erik Varga, who instead missed three clays.
“I feel delighted after winning my second World Championship and the Olympic quota place,” said the Spanish shooter, who finished the match with 48 hits and equalled the World Record he set at last year’s World Cup Final in New Delhi (IND). “I have a lot of people supporting me and this makes me very happy.”
Varga crushed 47 total targets, adding a silver medal to the two World Championship golds he won in Granada (ESP) in 2014 and Lonato (ITA) in 2015. Kuwait’s Abdulrahman Al Faihan, Junior World Champion in Zagreb (CRO) in 2006, completed the podium in 3rd place, taking bronze with 32 hits out of 40 clay targets.
Participating in the first final match of his career in the Trap Men event, Australia’s 22-year-old James Willett — a four-time World Cup medalist in the Double Trap Men event — placed just outside of the podium, hitting 28 of his 35 targets and finishing in 4th position.
The four Olympic quotas for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games were awarded to Spain, Slovakia, Kuwait and Australia.
After surviving a never-ending shoot-off at the end of the qualification round, where he shot more than 40 additional targets to enter the final, Italy’s Mauro De Filippis — gold medalist at this year’s ISSF World Cup stage in Changwon — concluded his match in 5th place with 23 crushed clays out of 30.
Despite earning himself the higher qualification bib, United States’ Walton Eller left the match after only 25 targets missing eight of them and placing 6th with 17 hits.
Along with the individual bronze, Kuwait also won the team gold medal with 360 total hits; the silver and bronze medals was awarded to the United States of America and Italy, who also finished with 360 hits, but took 2nd and 3rd place according to the countback rule.
Provisional medal standings
| Rank | Nation | Individual | Team | Total | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | Silver | Bronze | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total | ||
| 1 | CHN |
2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 6 | |||
| 1 | IND |
1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 6 | |
| 3 | KOR |
1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 |
| 4 | RUS |
1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 | |
| 5 | ITA |
1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | ||||
| 6 | KUW |
1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||
| 7 | ESP |
1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| 8 | CRO |
1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||
| 8 | USA |
1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||
| 10 | SVK |
1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| 11 | GER |
1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| 11 | UKR |
1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| 5 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 36 | ||
The ISSF World Championship in Changwon will continue tomorrow with two more finals: the 10m Air Pistol Women, scheduled at 1:15 pm (UTC+9:00), and the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team Junior, taking place at 2:45 pm.
Footage of the Olympic events will be distributed worldwide via EBU and broadcasted live on the ISSF website, on the Federation’s Livestream channel and on its official Facebook page.
Live results, news and updates will be available on www.issf-sports.org and on all ISSF social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Weibo and Youku.