Finals Skeet Women

15-year old Hill of Great Britain wins the Skeet Women final, aiming at Rio 2016

ISSF World Cup Shotgun · Acapulco, MEX

The youngest participant, Great Britain’s Amber Hill, 15, won today’s Skeet Women event at the ISSF World Cup in Acapulco, setting her goals for the future.

Great Britain’s Amber Hill surprised everybody at today’s Skeet Women final at the ISSF World Cup in Acapulco, Mexico. The 15-year old athletes won indeed the Gold medal match, winning her first ISSF event ever, at her very first try.

Hill passed through the qualification scoring the new Junior World Record, 68 hits. Then, she advanced to the semi-finals, where she met world-class shooters such as the 2008 Olympic Champion Chiara Cainero of Italy.

With the new ISSF rules, in place since January 2013, the qualification score is not carried forward into the final phases. Therefore, the six semi-finalists started the match from zero. Hill zeroed in, and turned the round in her favour, placing atop of the rankings with 15 hits out of 16 targets.

Making it to the Gold medal match, the young shooter faced Italy’s 29-year old World Cup multi-medallist Diana Bacosi. Staying focused on each target, Hill shoot again a great round, and cleared the final outdoing her Italian opponent 15 to 11 hits, securing the Gold.

Hill’s is a great story. And it all started with a rugby match. “When I was 10, I did not want to spend my Sundays watching my brother’s rugby matches. So I ended up at the shooting range with my grandfather. He introduced me to the sport.”

“I’ve peaked up Olympic skeet only one year ago. And it’s great, even if it has been difficult to cope with school, trainings and all the other obligations.”

“Why am I doing all this? The big dream is Rio’s Olympic Gold medal!” the young shooter said with a smile on her face.

Italy’s 2008 Olympic Champion Chiara Cainero secured the Bronze medal, outdoing Korea’s Kim Minji in the Bronze medal match 12 to 9 hits. And this signed a great start into the 2013 season for Italy’s new Skeet coach, the 2004 Olympic Champion Andrea Benelli, who started-off with two athletes on the podium at his first international appointment.

USA’s Jaiden Grinnell, and Russia’s Landish Kvartalova placed in fifth and sixth place, after closing the semi-final with 12 and 10 hits, respectively. They both had scored 72 out of 75 targets in the qualifications, setting a new world record (after the latest rules changes, all the Skeet records were cancelled, and today’s was the first competition of the season where records were recorded).

The ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Acapulco continues tomorrow with the last matches, the Skeet Men semi-finals and medal matches. Don’t miss the action, log on www.issf-sports.org

Marco Dalla Dea