The 2008 Olympic champion of Czech Republic won today's Trap Men Final, beating his Turkish opponent at the very last shot of the round. It's Kostelecky's second gold medal back to back, after his victory at the last ISSF World Cup in Al Ain.
Czech Republic's David Kostelecky won his second trap world cup gold medal of the season back to back, at the ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Larnaca, Cyprus, today.
The 39-year old shooter climbed atop of the podium after a breathtaking gold medal match, where he met and beat Turkey's 27-year old Yavuz Ilnam with a score of 13 to 12 hits.
The two athletes shot neck and neck right to the last shot, when Ilnam missed his very last target, leaving Kostelecky the brightest medal.
Kostelecky, the 2008 Olympic Champion in this event, had never won a world cup gold before this season. He made it for the first time this year, at the last world cup stage in Al Ain (UAE), and he repeated himself today, at the Olympic shooting range of Larnaca.
“It's crazy, I had never won a gold for 20 years, and now I got two back to back. Sometimes life is strange.” Said the Czech champion after the final.
Today, he gave his best: after qualifying with 124 hits out of 125 targets, he cleared the semi-final with a perfect score of 15 hits, before beating Ilnam at the medals round.
“It has been a tough competition, the conditions are not so easy. The light and the wind have been challenging thorough the whole match.”
“You can't drop many targets these days, if you want to make it into the final. The results of the competitors are so high that there's not much room for mistakes.”
“With the new ISSF rules, the qualification score is not carried forward into the final. So hitting 124 targets was a good score to get into the match, but then I had to give my best during the semi-final to clinch a medal.”
“Rio 2016 is the goal for every shooter, now. But that's still far away, 14 months, you never know what it can happen in between. I am trying to stay focused on this year's competitions.” He added, speaking about his future plans.
Silver medallist Ilnam celebrated with Kostelecky, in spite of finishing in second. Indeed, not only he won his very first world cup medal, but also claimed a Rio 2016 Olympic quota for Turkey. Quite an achievement for the 27-year old athlete ranked 88th in the world, and who had never made it into a final round of a world cup event, before.
The Bronze medal match finished in favour of Croatia's Josip Glasnovic (31), who beat Finland's first-time finalist Vesa Tornroos with a net score of 15 to 10 target. As the Croatian shooter had already won an Olympic quota at the last world cup in Al Ain (where he claimed Silver), today's second Rio qualification spot went to Finland.
Following the medallists, USA's Casey Wallace and Australia's Michael Diamond placed in fifth and sixth with 12 and 10 hits in the semi-final, respectively.
The Trap Men Final concluded the ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Larnaca. The ISSF World Cup will now move on to Fort Benning, GA, USA, where the next rifle and pistol world cup stage will be held starting from the 11th of May. Follow the next events on www.issf-sports.org