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Finals Double Trap Men

Double Trap: an American duel at the ISSF World Cup in Tucson

ISSF World Cup Shotgun · Tucson, USA

Jeffrey Holguin and Joshua Richmond dueled for Gold at the Double Trap medal match, right to the last target and further on. Vitaly Fokeev of the Russian Federation beat Italy's Barillà in the Bronze match.

Jeffrey Holguin, 35, won the Double Trap Men gold medal match at the 2014 ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Tucson, Arizona, USA, beating the second American finalist Joshua Richmond in a shoot-off for the highest step of the podium.

 

Holguin passed through the qualification with 140 hits, then closing the semi-final in second place with 27 hits out of 30 targets to access the gold medal match. There, he met his 28-year old teammate Joshua Richmond, the 2010 World Champion and a 4-time ISSF World Cup winner, who led the semi-finals with 29 hits.

 

The all-American medal match turned into a breathtaking head and head duel, and fifteen pairs were not enough to decide the placements: both Holguin and Richmond closed the round with 27 hits out of 30 targets. Holguin won then the following shoot-off tiebreaker 4 to 3 hits, pocketing his very first ISSF World Cup Gold medal.

 

Holguin said: “It feels awesome. Not only this is the first World Cup of the season. It's the first World Cup I have ever won. I have been around for a while, and I won some Bronze medals, I shot some good scores, and I even won a World Championship Silver medal. But this is the first ISSF Gold I have ever won!”

 

The American shooter started competing back in 1996, and since then he clinched four ISSF World Cup Bronze medals, a World Cup Final Bronze and a World Championship Silver (in 2009). But that brightest medal was still missing. He found it here in Tucson, in front of his family and supporters, and after a duel against his friend and teammate Richmond.

 

“Going against a teammate in a shoot-off it's a little bit easier.” Holguin said. “When we both qualified for the Gold medal match the pressure went down. I was very comfortable after that point: in the end, we shoot together all the time.”

 

Today's Bronze medal went to the three-time Olympian Vitaly Fokeev (RUS), who outdid Italy's first-time finalist Antonino Barillà by 25 to 23 hits in the medal match. Barillà's teammates Marco Innocenti e Daniele Di Spigno suffered the wind conditions, and finished in fifth and sixth place with 25 and 22 hits after the semifinal, respectively.

 

“It has been windy all day long, and through practice. But these targets were quite consistent, they are good clays.” Holguin said, after the podium.

 

A Gold medal is always the best way to start off the season. Even more if the season we're talking about is 2014, amid the Olympic Cycle leading to Rio 2016.

“I have a busy schedule this year.” Holguin commented. “I have qualified for everything except the World Cup in Beijing. The most important event of the year? We're putting a lot of emphasis on the World Championship, where the first quota places for Rio will be distributed.”

 

Marco Dalla Dea

 

ISSF Partners