On the second-to-last day of the ISSF World Championship in Moscow (RUS), one of the most exciting matches of the competition delivered the Skeet Men Junior title to Denmark’s 19-year-old Emil Kjelgaard Petersen.
The Danish shooter, currently in 29th position in the ISSF World Ranking, nailed an unbelievable streak of 32 consecutive hits midway through the match, finding himself in a battle against Italy’s 19-year-old Elia Sdruccioli, Gold medalist at last month’s ISSF Junior World Cup in Porpetto (ITA).
As they approached the ten final targets with 45 hits each, Sdruccioli missed twice on station 3 and 4, while Petersen only missed his very last clay, finishing with 54 hits out of 60 targets and adding the World Championship Gold to the Bronze he won at last month’s European Championship in Baku (AZE). The Italian talent, instead, took Silver 53.
After entering the final with the highest qualification score, two-time European Champion Nicolas Vasiliou (20) of Cyprus secured the Bronze medal with the score of 41 hits out of 50.
Vasiliou was followed by home favorite Mikhail Sharapov (20) of the Russian Federation, who held the lead in the early stage of the match, but only finished 4th with 34 clay hits out of 40, and 19-year-old Jaroslav Lang of the Czech Republic, who finished 13th at last month’s Junior World Cup in Porpetto (ITA) and placed 5th in Moscow, crushing 25 out of 30 targets.
After 20 targets, the first shooter to be eliminated was Kazakhstan’s Alexandr Mukhamediyev (18), who dramatically improved the 32nd place he nailed at the 2015 ISSF World Championship in Lonato (ITA), taking 6th place with 11 hits out of 20.
Silver medalist Sdruccioli also led Italy atop the team podium, along with Valerio Palmucci and Erik Pittini, scoring 353 points. The team Silver went to Turkey’s Kemal Madencioglu, Salih Hafiz and Onur Atak, who scored 348, while Nic Moschetti, Elijah Keith Ellis and Eli Nazaret Christman of the United States of America hit 345 total clays.
The ISSF World Championship Shotgun in Moscow (RUS) will conclude tomorrow with the twelfth and last final, the Skeet Mixed Team, scheduled at 4:30 pm (UTC+3:00). The medal matches will be streamed live on the ISSF website, on the Federation’s Livestream channel, on its official Facebook page and on the Olympic Channel.
Live results of the competitions, 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.