Doha, 12 March 2023 - Turkiye’s Oguzhan Tuzun and Australia’s Penny Smith clinched men’s and women’s trap titles respectively following exciting match-ups on the penultimate day of action in the ISSF World Cup Shotgun Doha 2023 at the Lusail Shooting Range, yesterday.
Tuzun, a former world champion and a two-time gold winner at World Cup finals, shot 33 targets, three more than his closes rival, Matthew John Coward-Holley of Great Britain, in the medal round.
India’s Prithviraj Tondaiman secured his second World Cup bronze after hitting 20 targets while Kuwait’s Naser Meqlad finished fourth.
A jubilant Tuzun was thrilled after his victory. Speaking with the support of Turkiye’s Ambassador to Qatar H E Mehmet Mustafa Goksu, who was also the chief guest at the presentation ceremony for the men’s trap, Tuzun said he did his best.
“We prepared very well. I did what I came here to do. I had a challenge. I missed two targets, but I was determined and did my best,” Tuzun told ISSF’s official Youtube channel.
Tuzun barely made it to the ranking round after securing the last qualifying spot earlier yesterday.
The 40-year-old Turkish shooter hit 121, same as 14 others in the qualifying round but managed to finish ninth after coming on top with 10 hits in a shoot-off. Coward-Holley topped the qualifying round with 124 hits out of 125 before winning a shoot-out battle with Kuwait’s Meqlad and USA’s Derek Haldeman. The top two shooters in each of the ranking matches made it to the final medal round.
Earlier, in women’s trap, Australian Smith was second in the qualifying round, hitting 12 targets – one less than Italy’s Silvana Stanco.
Slovakia’s Tokyo Olympic gold medallist Zuzana Rehak Stefecekova and USA’s Alicia Kathleen Gough topped the first ranking match while Smith and Spaniard Fatima Galvez came out as top two in the second as all four of them booked their places in the final.
Both Smith and Rehak were tied at the top after hitting 28 each in the final round, forcing a shoot-out to determine the winner. However, Smith was on target once more while Rehak missed her first target in the sudden death situation as the Australian emerged victorious in at Lusail Range.
Gough, with 20 hits, came third while Spaniard Galvez finished fourth. The 26-year-old said she feels great after her victory, her sixth ISSF gold medal at World Cup.
“I’ve been working pretty hard on some specific things at home, and it came out and today was a good day. So it’s turned out well,” Smith said.
Both of the top two finishers missed seven out of their 35 targets in the medal round, but smith said she adjusted herself to the conditions.
“To be honest, I’m not really sure (why we all missed many targets). But whatever it was, we all seemed to make an adjustment right at about the same time, and that worked out. So it ended up well. But that was a battle for sure,” she said.
Smith also said the standard of the sport is growing.
“Yeah, the quality is really high. The standard is growing in women’s trap and it’s just fantastic too. The competition is really ramping up leading into Paris Olympics next year,” Smith said.
