Today it turned out to be Ray Bassil’s day, at the Cyprus Olympic Shooting Range of Nicosia, where the first ISSF Shotgun World Cup stage of the season is held from the 17th through the 24th of March.
The 27-year old Lebanese shooter claimed the women’s Trap gold, securing her first world cup medal in career, shooting a great final in a windy day.
Bassil, ranked 20th in the world in this event, made it to the final phases of the competition by passing through a four-way shoot-off at the end of the qualification rounds, with a score of 68+1 hits.
She then gave her best in the semi-final, scoring 14 out of 15 targets, to end atop of the table.
In the Gold medal match, she met and beat Germany’s Sonja Scheibl, in spite of missing three targets.
The two athletes battled in the wind throughout the whole match, Bassil taking an early lead in the first half of the match, and Scheibl climbing back after the first 12 targets.
But Bassil turned out to be unbeatable: shuttering her last two targets, she claimed today’s Gold with a score of 12 hits, leaving Scheibl in second place with 10.
Scheibl, who had qualified with 70 hits and hit 13 targets in the semi-final, collected Silver, her second world cup medal in career (the first one being a Bronze won here in Nicosia back in 2013).
Bassil had never won an ISSF World Cup medal, before. Her best achievement in an ISSF-sanctioned competition had been a junior Bronze medal, won at the 2007 ISSF World Championship conducted on the very same layout here in Nicosia.
“I had won that World Championship junior bronze here in Nicosia, and I had that thing in mind. I told to myself: ‘this is my range, and I have to win back my medal, any medal’, and I did it!” says Bassil.
“Waking up this morning I was really positive, knowing that I would give my best. It has been a long day, but a really wonderful one!”
“It has been really windy, compared to the other days when I had a chance to train here. I managed the situation mentally: I never thought about it, I just focused on the exit of the targets, and stuck to the same routine for every clay.”
“Eventually, I had a very good final, I feel I am on the right track.”
“This is the result of teamwork. I really want to thank Daniele Di Spigno (a member of the Italian Double Trap team, ed.), who coached me through a couple of training camps and helped me to climb atop of the podium, today.”
The reigning world champion and current #1 in the world, Spain’s Fatima Galvez, 29, took today’s Bronze, beating Finland’s first-time finalist Mopsi Veromaa, 35, in the Bronze medal match, with a score of 13 to 9 hits. Galvez had qualified with 70 targets, and 10 hits in the semi-final.
World Rank’s #3 Alessandra Perilli of San Marino (28) and New Zealand’s Natalie Ellen Rooney (27) followed them in 5th and 6th place, with a semi-final score of 9 and 8 hits, respectively.
The ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Nicosia keeps on rolling: the Skeet Women final will take place tomorrow afternoon (March 22nd), at 4.15 PM (UTC+2). Follow the match live on www.issf-sports.org