Ian O'Sullivan (IRL), 18, won the Junior Men's Trap event, as he beat Jack Wallace (AUS), 17, by 13-11 in the gold medal match, today at the ISSF World Championship in Granada. Nathan Hales (GBR), 18, took third place as he won an all-British bronze medal match against teammate Jack Wilkinson after a shoot-off (8-7).
O'Sullivan and Wallace were actually in a duel since the semifinal. The two of them kept perfect scores till the eleventh target, when O'Sullivan missed and Wallace temporarily took the lead. O'Sullivan eventually caught up with him, as they both qualified for the gold medal match with the same score (13 hits).
In the final duel, O'Sullivan was off to an impressive start as he hit ten targets in a row. Despite missing the next two, O'Sullivan was still able to defeat Wallace and get the gold.
“It was hard, but I managed to get through,” gold medalist O'Sullivan said, referring to that moment in the gold medal match when he missed two targets and his lead on Wallace had diminished from three to just one, as there were only three targets left.
“I will tell them [my Irish friends] that I'm the World Champion. I don't know if they will believe me!”
“Hopefully we can keep it going,” O'Sullivan said. Indeed, he was not alone. Team Manager Jeffrey McCready was there with him.
“It's a big part of this game,” McCready said talking of concentration, which O'Sullivan mentioned as something he will have to work on in the future.
“I am so proud of him, I really am,” McCready said. “The whole nation is proud of him. It's a fantastic achievement. We're so proud of him. We really are.”
A very close contest decided the dispute between Hales and Wilkinson in the bronze medal match; the British shooters were tied, as they had endured an exciting neck and neck competition til the last shot (12-12). The shoot-off proved at least as uncertain: fourteen targets were not enough, as there was still a tie (7-7). Finally, Wilkinson missed his fifteenth target and let Hales take the bronze.
The host country slightly missed the chance to have one of his shooters to win a medal, as Spain's Alvaro Gormaz lost the shoot-off to enter the bronze medal match. Gormaz and Wilkinson were tied at 11 hits in the semifinal, but the latter eventually won the runoff (5-4). With 9 hits, Italy's Andrea Boeri took sixth place.