The American shooter could win her 5th Olympic medal. And her 6th as well, just five days later. The reigning Olympic Champion Cainero of Italy and a contingent of top ranked shooters are ready to challenged her, today, at the Royal Artillery Barracks.
Kimberly Rhode (USA) will have an opportunity to make history by becoming the first American Olympian to win 5 medals back to back in 5 different Olympic editions, today, if she will finish on the Skeet Women podium.
The American shooter will also attempt to establish another record: winning two medals in two different shooting events, during the same Olympics, since she also qualified to compete in Trap, on the 4th of August.
Today’s final will be a master of drama. At the last Olympics, Beijing 2008, the three medalists – Italy’s Cainero, the USA’s Rhode and Germany’s Brinker – finished all tied. And it was a shoot-off – a sudden-death tie-breaker – to decide the medals.
Rhode is simply the most successful female clay shooter of all times. And that’s not just because of her 23 ISSF World Cup medals… She won two Olympic Gold medals and a Bronze in 1996, 2000 and 2004, shooting Double Trap. Then, when the Double Trap Women event was discontinued as an Olympic event, she turned to Skeet, winning Silver in Beijing.
But she will meet the strongest Skeet shooters of the world, today. Besides the title defender Cainero, Chinese star Wei Ning, ranked third in the world, will do her best to earn a medal: she won the 2012 ISSF Pre-Olympic World Cup in London last April. And we should not forget to mention current Final World Record holder, Slovakia’s Danka Bartekova, who finished in second at the pre-Olympic test.