USA’s Joshua Richmond won today’s Double Trap Men competition at the ISSF World Championship in all shooting events held in Munich (GER), securing the world title and an Olympic Quota Place with a record score of 196 hits out of 200 clays.
The 24-year old American shooter built his victory throughout the final match. Qualified in second place with 146 hits out of 150 targets, the athlete from Fort Benning, GA, did not drop a single target during the final match, overtaking his Russian opponent Mosin and climbing in the lead.
Shattering 50 out of 50 targets in the final, Richmond finished on the highest step of the podium with a total score of 196 targets, equalling the current world record set at last year’s ISSF World Cup Stage in Minsk by China’s Hu Binyuan (third today).
“It feels simply great! To win a World title, equalling the world record and securing Olympic Quota place… I still don’t know how I made it!” exclaimed the American shooter right after the final match, surrounded by his teammates, celebrating the title and the first Olympic Quota place won by the US Shotgun Team in this championship.
“I have been Junior World Champion in 2005… to win a title in the open category five years later is a dream which becomes true!” said Richmond, who had won a Junior title at the 2005 World Championship held in Lonato, Italy.
The American athlete won a difficult final, today. A final taking place under a cold and thin rain, and disturbed by a slight breeze blowing from the left to the right side of the range. A match which was stopped twice, first to let the US finalist Holguin change his trigger’s spring, and then to fix the targets’ angle.
“This is a great range, but it has not been easy! Something happened with the targets, the right clay moved to the centre. It was not properly angled anymore. I’d like to thank the ISSF referees for stopping the match and fixing it, even if that added a little bit of extra pressure to the round.” Commented Richmond. The American athlete, ranked fourth in the world until today’s final, has been a protagonist of the last two ISSF seasons, winning two World Cup Gold and one Bronze medals between 2009 and 2010.
Russia’s Vasily Mosin led today’s qualification with an equalled world record of 146 hits, but then he slid down in the placements during the final by missing 4 out of the 50 final targets. The Russian athlete eventually grabbed the Silver medal with a total score of 193+30 hits, winning an breathtaking shoot-off against the Olympic Bronze medallist of Beijing Hu Binyuan of China, who was left in third place with 193+29 hits.
“I am very satisfied and very happy, anyway – said Mosin after the match, while talking to the EBU microphones - I was expecting to finish on the podium, and eventually I made it. It was very important for me to secure an Olympic Quota place!”
China’s Hu Binyuan, claiming the Bronze medal, also grabbed the last Olympic Quota place awarded in this final, securing a start in the next London 2012 Olympic Games.
The second American finalist, the 2008 Olympic finalist Jeffrey Holguin, 31, finished in fourth place with 192 (144+48) hits, missing the podium and the Olympic qualification by one target. The American shooter experienced a malfunction, and had to replace the spring of this trigger during the final round.
The fifth and the sixth place were taken by Richard Bogner of Hungary with 190 (145+45) targets and by Shih Wei Tin of Chinese Taipei with 188 (145+43) hits.