After hitting 75 targets in the qualifications - setting a new World Record - the home athletes secured the Gold with 99 hits. Three months before the Games, she's the favourite, and could write a new page of the Olympic history.
USA’s four-time Olympic medallist Kimberly Rhode won today’s Skeet Women event, the opening competition of the 2012 ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Tucson, Arizona.
The Californian athlete made it to the final by shooting a new, outstanding world record of 75 hits out of 75 targets during the qualifications. Entering the final with five targets of advantage on her followers, she turned out to be unreachable.
“It’s great to start the season in this way, on my home turf, especially as we are getting closer to the Olympics.” Rhode said right after the final.
Hitting 24 targets throughout the final match, she finished on the highest step of the podium with a golden total score of 99 hits, equalling the current Final World Record, just one target shy of setting a new Final Record.
“I was so close… People tend to fin a million excuses for their mistakes… but no excuses, I just missed that target.” She commented on missing a clay on the second station.
Rhode is said to be one of the favourites for the 2012 London Olympics. With four individual Olympic medals won in Double Trap and Skeet Women events between 1996 and 2008, in London she could become the first US athlete to win five individual medals back to back in the history of the Games.
The American record setter had won the 2010 ISSF World Championship in Munich (GER), and last year’s ISSF World Cup Final in Izmir (TUR)
The record of 75 hits out of 75 hits she set today, shutters the previous World Record of 74/75 scored by Elena Little (GBR) at the 2005 ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Belgrade (SRB). Rhode had equalled that record twice in 2010 and 2011, before breaking it on her home turf today.
The Silver medal went to Italy’s 28-year old Diana Bacosi, ranked 58 in the world before today’s match, who had made it to the final with a qualification score of 70 hits in second place. Hitting 22 targets in the final, the Italian met today’s second US finalist,18-year old Brandy N. Drozd, in a shoot-off for the Silver mesal, beating her 92+6 to 92+5 hits.
Drozd, debuting in the ISSF World Cup Series today, finished on the podium with the Bronze medal, her first award in ISSF international competitions.
USA’s Morgan Craft, 18, the third American shooter to qualify for the final match with a score of 69 hits, finished in fourth with an overall score of 91 hits. She had won a Junior Bronze medal at the last ISSF Shotgun World Championship, in Belgrade, in 2011.
Chadid Crovetto, 21, from Chile, who secured a spot in the final with 69 hits during the qualifications, ended up in fifth place with 91 hits as well. Today’s was her best placement ever within the frame of the ISSF World Cup Series, being her previous best achievement a 21st place at the 2011 ISSF World Cup in Concepcion (CHI).
The 2005 World Champion, France’s Veronique Girardet squeezed into the final passing through a qualification shoot-off with 68+7 hits, outdoing Slovakia’s Olympic hope Danka Bartekova. She finished in sixth place with an overall score of 90 hits, after hitting 22 targtes in the final.
The ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Tucson, Arizona, continues tomorrow with the Skeet Men event. The medal match is scheduled at 3.30 PM (GMT-7) tomorrow afternoon. Follow the match on www.issf-sports.org and on http://www.youtube.com/issfchannel