Argentina’s Federico Gil beats Cyprus’ Achilleos in the men’s Skeet final in Larnaka

Argentina’s Federico Gil claimed today’s Skeet Men gold medal at the ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Larnaka, Cyprus.

The 29-year old shooter beat the home athlete, Cyprus’ 14-time world cup medalist Georgios Achilleos, to climb atop of the podium and collect his very first ISSF medal.

Gil, who has gone through 13 ISSF World Cups since 2000 before winning today’s match, secured the brightest medal at the very last shot, nailing his 56^th target, while Achilleos missed it, finishing in second with a score of 55 hits.

The Argentinian missed four clays throughout the whole final, after qualifying for the medal match with 122 hits out of 125 targets, and passing through a shoot-off to enter the final with +2 hits.

 

“This is a special day for me, – said Gil after the final - I have been shooting since I was 8-year old, and this is my first world cup medal. It comes on a special day: my mother’s birthday. She’s here, with my father, who got me into the sport and coaches me. This medal is for them.”

 

After missing four clays in the first part of the match, Gil zeroed in and climbed up the scoreboard, while his opponents were dropped out of the final one after the other.

 

“It has been a tough match. But I love it. I love this new elimination-style final. You have the time to recover if you make a mistake. It has been a great match. I couldn’t be happier,” he added.

 

“I have been improving in the last years. Thanks to my country, my federation and my sponsors, that supported me a lot, and thanks to my father and his coaching.”

 

“The next big goal is the ISSF World Championship, in September. That’s in my sights.”

 

The Bronze medal went to the 2014 ISSF World Champion Alexander Zemlin of the Russian Federation. The 26-year old shooter made it to the medal match with 123+7 hits. After leading the first half of the final, he missed two clays on station 3 and 5, closing his match in third place with a tally of 44 targets.

 

Great Britain’s Ben William David Llewellin, 22, Finland’s Oskari Kossi, 29, and UAE’s Saif Bin Futtais, 43, followed the medalists in 4^th, 5^th and 6^th places with 34, 25 and 18 hits, respectively.

 

429 athletes from 61 countries are competing in the ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Larnaka, Cyprus, the third and last world cup stage of the season before the Finals, that will be held in New Delhi in October.

 

Tomorrow (May the 2^nd) athletes will go through the men’s Double Trap pre-event training. The next medal event, the men’s Double Trap final, will take place on May the 3^rd at 16.15 (UTC+3), while the women’s and men’s Trap finals will be held on May the 6^th and the 7^th, respectively.

 

All final matches will be streamed live on the ISSF website, on the Federation’s Livestream channel and on its official Facebook page. Live results of the competition, news and updates will be available on www.issf-sports.org and on all ISSF social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Weibo and Youku.