Great Britain is on fire, at the 2013 ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.
Following Aaron Heading’s victory at the Trap Men event two days ago, today it was Peter Peter Russell Wilson’s day.
The 2012 Olympic Champion of Great Britain won today’s Double Trap Men event, outdoing China’s Wang Hao in the Gold medal match.
Wilson qualified for the final phases of the competition hitting 141 targets out of 145, advancing then to the semi-finals.
With the new ISSF rules, the qualification scores are not carried forward into the final phases. Starting from zero, Wilson climbed up the scoreboard, hitting 29 out of 30 targets in the semi-final, gaining a spot in the Gold medal match.
There, the reigning Olympic Champ met the first time World Cup finalist Hao Wang, 36, outdoing him 30 to 28 hits in a narrow match.
Today’s Bronze medal went at the same time to Italy’s 23-year old Davide Gasperini, who beat his teammate Daniele Di Spigno 27 to 26 hits in the Bronze medal match.
Wilson won today’s match with apparent ease, in spite of having just two weeks of training in his barrels, he said: “To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much. The plan wasn’t to shoot. I had not been training for the last seven months, after the Games. I did a bit of shooting, but not double trap.”
Wilson said he was not supposed to compete, but his coach, the 2004 Olympic Champion, Sheik Amhed Almaktoum of Dubai, pushed him to take part in the match.
“Amhed, suggested me I should compete here, and I followed his advices. I’ve spent the last two weeks shooting with him, and he said I was ready.”
This is just the last goal scored by the Almaktoum-Wilson team, a Prince and a British student who used to work as a bar tender to pay his trainings.
“I met Ahmed in Beijing in 2009. At that time, I had just lost the government founds for my shooting. I had an opportunity to speak with him about. I respected him as the best Double Trap shooter ever. Well, he agreed on supporting and coaching me. The goal was to win the 2012 Olympic Games. And it worked well!” Wilson said.
Al Ain’s World Cup is one of the international matches on the path of a new Olympic cycle, leading to Rio 2016. But Almaktoum, as the wise coach he is, said it’s just too early to deal with the next Games.
“This is not even a starting point, this is just a first step. We have to start again from scratch, after the rule changes. There is a lot of work to do. Peter knows it, and I am sure he will make it!” Sheik Almaktoum said.
The winning team is on track again, on the road to Rio.