OSIJEK, Croatia – Egypt’s Azmy Mehelba clinched the gold medal in the men’s skeet final at the ISSF World Championship Shotgun 2022, an Olympic Games Paris 2024 qualifier, in Croatia.
Three-time Olympic champion Vincent Hancock from USA, who became Mehelba’s main rival in the fight for gold, won the silver.
Bronze was won by 2021 World Cup medallist Rashid Saleh Al-Athba from Qatar.
All three athletes won quotas to Paris 2024 for their countries. One more took Stefan Nilsson from Sweden who broke all 125 targets in qualification and finished on Forth place.
The world championship is also part of the qualification for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, with four quota places on offer in each individual event.
Egypt’s Mehelba beat Hancock in the final for world title; USA, Sweden, Egypt and Qatar clinched Olympic quota spots.
Hancock missed just one target midway through the medal match so could do nothing to prevent Mehelba from claiming a perfect hit in the final round. Third placed Rashid Al-Athba of Qatar rounded out the podium.
Sweden’s Stefan Nilsson finished fourth but claimed a Paris 2024 quota place for his nation alongside Mehelba, Hancock and Al-Athba for Egypt, USA, and Qatar, respectively.
In the women’s final, Italy’s Diana Bacosi clinched victory in the women’s skeet final after defeating Great Britain’s Amber Hill.
American Sam Simonton took bronze while Slovakia’s Vanesa Hockova finished off the podium in fourth.
Bacosi, Simonton and Hockova also claimed Paris 2024 quota places for their nations – Italy, USA, Slovakia, respectively – by finishing in the top two in their ranking matches and qualifying for the final.
Due to Hill already having qualified a place for Great Britain after becoming European champion last month, the next best finisher, Iryna Malovichko bagged a spot for Ukraine.
Bacosi jumped up and down and hugged her coach on claiming first place in the women’s skeet world championship.
The Rio 2016 Olympic champion and Tokyo 2020 silver medallist claimed a golden hit against Hill who had put herself on the back foot from the start with a surprising double miss in the first round of the final. From then on the Brit was playing catch up but Bacosi kept her nerve.
Hill got back in the groove and was able to regroup to make it to the final two after the form of Simonton, who had bested USA team-mate Austen Smith to the second qualification position, dipped.
The youngster received a high five from her coach after achieving third place.
Nine-time world championship medallist and Olympic bronze winner Danka Bartekova of Slovakia surprisingly went out in the ranking round, disappointed not to make the final.
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