Shooters in action during yesterday's qualifying round of men's trap.
Doha: Great Britain’s Matthew John Coward-Holley and Augustin Tuzun of Turkiye shot perfect scores of 75 hits in men’s trap qualification on the seventh day of the ISSF World Cup Shotgun Doha 2023, yesterday.
At the Lusail Shooting Range, World No 1 Coward-Holly and Tuzun, a two-time world champion, led the star-studded field 118-strong field with two more rounds to go before today’s final.
Thirteen shooters, including Qatar’s three-time Olympian Rashid Saleh Al Athba, each missed one hit to finish with 74.
Meanwhile, trap competition for women which had 62 shooters in action, saw Aussie markswoman Penny Smith at the top of the table after three rounds with 74 hits out of 75.
The five time World Cup gold winner Smith was closely followed by Rachel Tozier from USA with 73 hits while five shooters had 72 hits in front of their names.
Meanwhile, two time Olympic medallist David Kostelecky of the Czech Republic yesterday said he and his teammates are happy to be in action under perfect conditions in Qatar.
“We are happy to come here because we have finally good weather. In Europe, it’s still cold. So it’s nice to shoot in the in the perfectly good weather,” Kostelecky who shot 73 in yesterday’s three qualifying rounds, said.
“All my good results came in hot weather. So I don’t mind it. And I prefer to shoot in the hot weather for sure,” the 47-year-old said.
“I shot 25, 23, 23. I’m not happy with that. I didn’t have a second shot. But that’s shooting and it’s still two rounds to go. So you never know what will happen. And as I said, I enjoy shooting now, so I will try my best,” the Beijing Games gold medallist Kostelecky said.
Kostelecky said he is gearing up for the Paris Games and is looking to secure Olympic quotas for his country.
“Well, we have the Olympic Games next year. And we have one quota, one for skeet for Czech Republic. So we are trying now to hunt for more quotas. It’s basically what the other federations are doing too,” Kostelecky, who has competed in six editions of Olympics since 1996, said.
Chairman of the ISSF Shotgun Committee and Technical Delegate Mohamed Wahdan was all in praise of the enjoyable atmosphere at the Championships.
“The World Cup is going very well, as you can see, everybody is happy, smiling. We have good scores. All satisfied,” Wahdan, a former shooter for the Egypt national team who later became an international referee before joining the ISSF shotgun Committee, said.
Qatari shooter Kholoud Hassan Al Khalaf reloads her gun.
“The organization is amazing. I mean, hotel wise, transportation wise, shooting ranges are very beautiful. And if you can see the results we got in skeet, it reflects the success of the organization. We had to shoot the final at night time (under lights), but it was amazing. And we had very high score as well at the final. No complaints from the shooters. Everybody was happy. It was good,” Wahdan said.
“Those lights actually helped us see the targets even better. It helped us. It helped the jury members, the referees, even the shooters. Because I asked the shooters after the final, is it better to have the final at night time? And they said, they can see the target very clear. And of course, because of the big number of participants in the competition, everybody wanted to come here. So we were obliged to have the final at night time,” the Chairman of the ISSF Shotgun Committee said.
