A first time finalist, Yang Huan of China, won the Trap Women final by beating Olympic medallists Cogdell (USA) and Gelisio (ITA).
The Trap Women event opened the 2010 ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Acapulco (MEX), the first appointment of this year’s ISSF World Cup Series.
The 25-year old Chinese shooter Yang Huan won the final match, claiming Gold with a total score of 92 hits. The young athlete was competing for the second time in an ISSF championship: she had shot her first international match at the World Cup in Cairo, last year, placing in fourteenth.
Yang surprised everybody by making it into today’s final round with the highest qualification score of 72 hits, and by leading the final with no hesitations in spite of being the less experienced athlete of the squad. Throughout the one-shot final, she hit twenty out of twenty-five targets, fighting neck and neck with the Olympic Bronze medallist Corey Cogdell of the USA and with the Italian Olympian Gelisio right to the last shot, securing her first international medal with one target of advantage on them.
Beijing’s Bronze Corey Cogdell of the USA, who had entered the final round tied to Yang with a qualification score of 72 hits, finished the final match in second, winning the Silver medal with a total score of 91 hits, just one target far from the highest step of the podium.
“It hasn’t been easy – Cogdell said after the award ceremony – I am coming from Colorado Springs: it’s winter, there, while here we are shooting under this sun!”
“Of course I am happy with my medal – continued the American Champion – I made it into the final with the top score, and I am definitely looking forward to get good results in the next World Cup Stages. I will probably be at the next stage, in Beijing.”
Corey Cogdell, 23- year old, had won her last ISSF World Cup Medal in 2007, when she shot Bronze in Changwon, Korea, and her last podium dated back to the 2008 Olympic Games, when she won the Trap Women Bronze in Beijing.
Italy’s most experienced Trap Women shooter, the three-time Olympian Deborah Gelisio, 34, finished in third place, securing Bronze with a total score of 90 hits. She was followed by Canada’s Cynthia Meyer, fourth with 89 hits, by China’s Qi Qiuwen in fifth with 88 hits and by San Marino’s Alessandra Perilli, sixth with 86 hits.
The Trap Men final round will take place tomorrow afternoon at 2 PM Acapulco Time (GMT-6). Follow the match live on www.issf-sports.org!