Home favourites Assem Orynbay and Eduard Yechshenko were victorious in the women’s and men’s skeet finals today in Almaty, Kazakhstan, as part of the Asian Shotgun Cup.
Women's Skeet Final
Assem Orynbay was dominant in the women’s skeet final, securing a popular home victory. The three-time Asian Shooting Championships medallist and Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games bronze medallist was an early leader in a battle with Eman Al Shamaa from Kuwait, but controlled the latter stages to claim gold comfortably.
In the early stages, Kuwait’s Afrah Al-Mohammad was resigned to sixth after hitting just one target in five attempts between shots six and 10. She was one shot behind Kazakhstan’s Adel Sadakbayeva, who herself was one behind her teammate Zoya Kravchenko.
Meanwhile, Orynbay’s early mistakes – missing four out of her first 16 – were ironed out once the eliminations started. After being tied with three other athletes at that point, just eight shots later she was the outright leader with all targets hit. It was a completely clear round as she moved four clear of Al Shamaa, five in front of Qatar’s Reem Al Sharshani and six ahead of Kravchenko, who remained in the competition in front of Sadakbayeva by virtue of having a better seeding.
The writing was on the wall for Kravchenko though, who was missing targets while her opponents bridged the gap further. Despite both Al Shamaa and Al Sharshani missing three out of their last four targets, the deficit was too much to make up. Kravchenko exited, while Orynbay had a five-shot lead, missing just two shots from her last 24.
Al Sharshani’s mistakes continued making the difference to Al Shamaa far too large to make up. The Qatari bowed out with bronze as Orynbay held a four-shot lead into the final 10 targets. While the Kuwaiti had closed the gap before the final round, mistakes crept in and Orynbay had secured the victory before either had taken their final four shots. Orynbay finished with a total of 51 to Al Shamaa’s 44.
Men's Skeet Final
Eduard Yechshenko’s victory was closer, but had enough to stay clear of Uzbekistan’s Bekzod Abdurakhimov.
Yechshenko, who won mixed skeet bronze at the 2022 ISSF World Shooting Championships with Orynbay, was the clear early leader with a three-shot lead at the first elimination stage. The first to go was China’s Haolei Zhao who was tied with Kazakh pairing Ilya Penkov and David Pochivalov.
Penkov was next to bow out, unable to overhaul United Arab Emirates’ Mohamed Ahmad and his teammate Pochivalov. While it was tight at the top, Yechshenko had a gap of six to Abdurakhimov as Ahmad placed fourth. Pochivalov would settle for the bronze medal, finishing one shy of the Uzbek athlete for the bronze medal.
Despite a great margin before the final 10 shots, Yechshenko made some misses that gave Abdurakhimov a chance – now the gap being four shots. With six shots to go the gap was now just three and momentum looked to be on the side of the chaser.
However, Abdurakhimov crucially missed on shot 56 to open the gap to four shots again. Despite two misses from Yechshenko, he still finished with a score of 50 to his opponent’s 48.