-15 to the Games. If you want drama, watch the Skeet Women final

If you’re looking for drama, well, the Skeet Women event is what you need. Fast. Thrilling. Unpredictable. We’re at the Royal Artillery Barracks, in London, but let’s look back at the last Olympic edition. In Beijing 2008, the three medalists – Italy’s Cainero, the USA’s Rhode and Germany’s Brinker – finished all tied. All with the same total score of 93 hits. After participating in three qualification series of 25 targets each, and a tough Olympic final, a shoot-off was needed to determine the podium placement. A sudden-death tiebreaker that can change the course of a four-year long Olympic preparation. Trainings, efforts, tears… if you miss you’re out, and the title is lost. In Beijing, Chiara Cainero of Italy won the match, taking the gold back home. Rhode and Brinker landed in second and third. But they believe this could be their time to finish up there. Brinker is back and in great shape after taking some time off after the last Olympics (she got married and had a baby with German skeet champion Tino Wenzel in 2010).

On her own right, 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. And, winning in London, she could make history as one of the most successful American athletes. In these years she climbed the Skeet Women world ranking to first place, and just a couple of months ago she set the new Skeet Women World Record while shooting on her home turf at the ISSF World Cup in Tucson (Arizona). When she competes, she is statistically the best. Out of 17 events she attended in the last four years, she made it into 15 finals, finishing 12 times with a medal (6 times on the highest step of the podium).

But the Games are the Games, there’s no time to do the math during such a match. And there are a number of shooters ready to fight. 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. “When we first walked into the range we were worried that it wouldn’t work. But the facilities are actually fine,” Bartekova commented at the time. “The range is not one of the easiest. You kind of “loose” the targets on station 2 and 6, when the clays fly between the net and the sky,” she added. And during the Games, to lose one target more than the others, just one of those little orange disks flying so fast and so far, will definitely mean to be out.

Skeet Women

Date of the Final in London: Sunday, 29.07.2012 at 14:00

Reigning Olympic Medallists

Current World Ranking Leaders

Current World Record Holder

Current Olympic Record Holder

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