It was Che Yufei who won the 43rd medal for China (the 21st gold), at the Skeet Women Junior competition, today.
The 19-year old shooter - who had already won an ISSF World Championship in 2015 - finished atop of the leaderboard with an unbeatable world-record score of 53 hits.
She left few chances to her teammate, 19-year old Song Zhengyi, who claimed silver with 51 hits, securing her first ISSF medal ever.
Bronze went to USA’s Austen Jewell Smith, who scored 43 hits to finish on the podium ahead of Russia’s Elizaveta Evgrafova, fourth with 32 hits. The 17-year old athlete, who had already won a world championship silver medal in Moscow last year, is coached by the 2-time Olympic Champion Vincent Hancock, who won today’s Skeet Men world title, only minutes after Smith’s final.
“I am really happy for her result,” Hancock said. “I tried to watch her match, but then I started becoming very nervous, and I had to walk away as I had to concentrate and prepare for my match.”
The third Chinese finalist, Sun Yashu, took the 5th place with 24 hits, ahead of USA’s Samantha Simonton - a bronze medalist at last year’s world championship, who finished in sixth today, with 16 hits.
The combined effort of Che, Song and Sun lifted the People’s Republic of China atop of the Team Event podium, with a new junior world record of 349 clays. The United States of America (Samantha Simonton, Austen Jewel Simth and Monika Katharina Jacob) followed in second place with a total of 345 hits. The Russian Federation completed the podium with 334 clays scored by Elizaveta Evgrafova, Zilia Batyrshina and Anna Zhafnova.