An incredible Skeet Men final sealed the first stage of the 2018 ISSF World Cup Series, as United States’ two-time Olympic Champion Vincent Hancock took gold in his first international appearance since the 2016 ISSF World Cup Final.
The 28-year-old American entered the final with the highest qualification score, then missing his only clay on his fifth trip to station 5, eventually finishing with the Equaled World Record of 59 hits out of 60 clays.
However, that wasn’t enough to claim the gold.
Australia’s 25-year-old Paul Adams, in fact, matched Hancock’s incredible performance, also equalling the World Record set by Italy’s Riccardo Filippelli and Great Britain’s Ben Llewellin in New Delhi (IND) last October.
In the decisive shoot-off for 1st place, it took six additional hits for Hancock to pocket the brightest medal, climbing atop the World Cup podium for the seventh time in his career and finally besting Adams, whose silver medal is his best result in an ISSF competition.
At the 50th shot mark, despite being tied with both Hancock and Adams, Tammaro Cassandro had to leave the match because of his lower bib number, placing 3rd and securing his fourth World Cup medal with 49 hits out of 50 targets.
Ukraine’s 50-year-old Mikola Milchev — the 2004 Olympic Champion in this event — took 4th place with 37 hits out of 40 clays.
He was followed by United States’ second finalist — Frank Thompson (29) — who placed 5th with 26 hits out of 30 hits, and by two-time Olympian Jorge Atalah (49) of Chile, who finished 6th with 15 crushed clays out of 20.
The 2018 ISSF World Cup Series will reprise next month in Changwon (KOR), while the next ISSF competition is the Junior World Cup that will take place in Sydney (AUS) from March 19th to March 29th.
The competition 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, 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.