Fifteen-year-old Iranian shooter Mohammad Beyranvand earned a shock place at the Paris 2024 Games in Kuwait City today after winning a shoot-off in the men’s trap at the Asian Olympic qualifier.
After China’s Guo Yuhao – who secured the second available Olympic quota place - had missed his second effort in the shoot-off to give the Iranian teenager a 2-1 win, the latter raised his arms into the air before falling onto his back with hands over his face, shedding tears.
The shock was understandable for a youngster who last year finished 71st at the World Championships and 54th in the Almaty ISSF World Cup.
Beyranvand will not turn 16 until August 28 this year – 26 days after the shooting event concludes at the Paris Games – and is currently in line to join three others who have competed in shooting at an Olympics aged 15, the youngest on record.
He would become the fourth oldest were he to take up his place in Paris.
The next challenge on his horizon could be to better the performance of China’s Sheng Lihao, who became the youngest ever shooter to win an Olympic medal when he took silver in the men’s 10m air rifle at the Tokyo 2020 Games.
In the earlier women’s trap final on day one of the Asian Shotgun Championship in the Kuwaiti capital, Olympic quota places also went to the gold and silver medallists – respectively Liu Wan-yu of Chinese Taipei and Zhang Xinqiu of China with respective scores of 44 and 39.
Bronze went to Kazakhstan’s Mariya Dmitriyenko.
In warm but increasingly windy conditions, the men’s final developed into a dramatic finale.
India’s Lakshay Lakshay carried a two-point lead into the medal round after scoring four out of five for a total of 31, with Qatar’s Rashid Al-Athba dropping from second to a final position of fourth after scoring two hits out of five.
Beyranvand and Guo also scored four out of five to total 29.
But while the two challengers shot perfect sequences, Lakshay only scored two of his next five, thus having to settle for bronze.
Perhaps the knowledge that he had secured one of the two Olympic quota places on offer was affecting the young Iranian’s concentration at this point. For whatever reason, he scored only one of his next five, and Guo, who scored three, thus went into the final round of five shots trailing by two hits, 37 to 35.
Beyranvand recovered admirably to score all five – and misses by Guo on his second and final efforts meant both moved into a shoot-off after totalling 40.
From there, the Iranian moved forward to his historic achievement.
In the women’s trap Liu led Zhang by one hit at the halfway point and perfect scores in her seventh, eighth and ninth series extended that lead beyond challenge.
Four more Olympic quota places remain to be claimed in Kuwait in the men’s and women’s skeet finals scheduled to take place on Saturday (January 20).
The last of the Olympic events, the mixed skeet final, will take place on Sunday (January 21).