Final Trap Men Event: five finalists for one Quota

The ISSF World Cup Shotgun in Changwong continued today with the Trap Men final, that turned out to be a breathtaking fight to win the Quota between five of the six finalists: all of them had a chance to win it but the Italian Pellielo, who already had won two years ago here in Changwon. Today’s match saw an endless back and forth on the first positions, with three athletes qualified in first with a tie score of 121 clays. After the first shots, the Spanish Jesus Serrano started missing, leaving free ground to his competitors, so that the struggle for Gold and Quota became a duel between the Slovakian athlete Erik Varga and the Indian Zoravar Singh Sandhu, both shooting almost tied along the entire round. The battle was decided by the last two shots, when Sandhu made his fatal mistake missing a bird and dropping down in second, leaving Varga both the medal and the Quota. Varga, silver medallist last year at the World Cup in Cairo and placed ninth at the last World Cup in Santo Domingo, confirmed once again to be in good shape, closing the final all ahead with the total score of 142 (121 +21) targets, and more than everything else gaining the indispensable Quota Place for his country. Just one target behind him, Shandhu found himself in tie with two Spanish athletes: Jeus Santana, who had recovered his mistakes in the second part of the round, and the 23-year old Alberto Fernandez, the young promise of Spain who had entered the final with the lowest qualification score just to shot a great round of 24 targets. The three finalists had to pass trough a shoot-off to decide the podium placements, a shoot-off that lasted just three shots: Jesus Serrano was to first to be pushed out, missing the very first bird and placing in fourth, while Sandhu missed the second one placing in third and leaving Silver to Alberto Fernandez, bounced on the second step of podium with the total score of 141 (117 + 24) + 2. Following them, Giovanni Pellielo of Italy and the Kuwaiti Naser Meqlad ended up their final tied as they had started. In the following shoot-off for the fifth place, Meqlad, winner of the 2006 Asian Games, outdid the three times World Champion Pellielo 3 to 2, crowning his great performance which took him into his first final ever in an ISSF World Cup. The next final, Double Trap event is scheduled for the 19th. As always, ISSF.TV will broadcast it live form the shooting range, please, keep following us for real time update and video stories. *Please, to read the complete results sheet, click on “Championship”, select “2007”, and then choose your event.