Day-4 at the ISSF World Cup in Munich was closed by the Double Trap Men final, and once again the perfect weather conditions and the excellent set up of the range helped some of the best clay shooters of the world to mark record scores.
“Clays looked bigger than ever, against the green background of the range” an athlete said. No surprise, the first qualified athlete, Great Britain's Tim Kneale (31) made it to the final phase of the competition by setting a new world record of 148 targets out of 150 clays.
Qualification scores are no longer carried into the final: the competition format has changed, and a new phase of the competition – the semi-final – has been introduced. There, Kneale, who had never participated in a world cup final round before, eventually placed in fourth after loosing the Bronze medal match against USA's Jeffrey Holguin (28 to 26 hits for Holguin).
Holguin (35) - the winner of the first world cup stage of the year in Tucson - qualified for final phases of the competition with 147 hits, and then hit 28 targets in the semi-final. He passed through a shoot-off to access to the Bronze medal match outdoing Russia's Vasily Mosin (fourth), and then won the duel against Kneal to pocket his second ISSF medal of the season.
The Gold medal went to the first-time finalist Hubert Andrzej Olejnik (32), shooting for Slovakia, who beat the 2008 Olympic Champion and current World Champion Walton Eller of USA (32) in a spine-chilling medal match. The two athletes shot tied from the beginning right to the end of the round, when Eller missed a fatal target in his second-last double, leaving the Gold to Olejnik.
“This must be a dream!” Olejnik said, wearing the Gold medal. “This has been the first world cup final round of my life. Today I also scored my personal best with the new rules, 146 hits, before it was 141. I still can't believe that I made it.”
After the qualifications, he shattered 29 targets out of 30 in the semi-final: enough to finish atop of the scoreboard. Then the Gold medal match, and his first world cup success.
“I know these guys since years, but making it to a final along with them feels great. Shooting shoulder and shoulder with an Olympic champion is something special.” He added.
“I am shooting for Slovakia, but I am Polish at the same time. I have two passports. I was not good enough for the Polish team, or at least this is what they said at that time. And now I am wearing a Gold medal for Slovakia. And I am proud of it.”
The 2014 ISSF World Cup in Munich will continue tomorrow with two more medal events. Find out more on www.issf.sports.org