ISSF

Published on 25 Apr 2015

Event preview: Women's Skeet at the ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Larnaca

issf-logo
Alessandro Ceschi

The competition's first final will be tomorrow at 5:30 pm (EEST)

This season's third ISSF World Cup in shotgun will start tomorrow in Larnaca, Cyprus.


Day 1 will feature men's skeet first round of qualification, as well as women's skeet qualification round and final. (See day-by-day schedule, or schedule by discipline.)


Qualifications for women's skeet will run from 9 am to 4:30 pm (EEST). The final will start at 5:30 pm.


Among those who will try to make the final there will be Kimberly Rhode, the three-time Olympic Gold Medalist who ranks first in her discipline's world ranking. The 35-year-old of the USA has already won a gold medal this season--Rhode beat her teammate Caitlin Connor and China's Wei Meng in the women's skeet final in Acapulco.


Both Connor and Meng will compete tomorrow as well.


Connor, 24, will find Rhode again in tomorrow's qualifications. She will try to make her way to the first World Cup gold in her career. Connor ranks 7th in the world ranking, just one spot behind Great Britain's Elena Allen. Wei, 25, was a World Cup Final silver medalist last year in Gabala. Ranked 9th worldwide, Wei had also won silver at the World Cup in Tucson earlier in the same season.


Italy's Diana Bacosi, who ranks second in the world, will join Rhode in the qualification round. The 32-year-old Bacosi also has won a gold already in the season. In Al Ain, she came atop an all-Italian women's skeet podium.


Olympic Gold Chiara Cainero, who came in second on that podium at Al Ain, will also be in tomorrow's qualifications. Cainero, 37, is ranked third in the world. She has won her last World Cup gold in July 2013 in Granada, Spain.


Two more athletes from the world top 10 will join the qualification round of women's skeet--Danka Bartekova and Andri Eleftheriou.


Slovakia's Bartekova, 30, was an Olympic Bronze at London 2012, and won gold at last year's World Cup in Tucson.  Cyprus' Eleftheriou, who is Bartekova's peer, will be playing at home, and try to win a gold medal after eight years from her last World Cup triumph--at Belgrade in 2008.