Stefecekova triumphs as Couzy, Dmitriyenko bag Olympic quotas
Doha: Slovakia’s reigning Olympic trap women champion Zuzana Stefecekova laid down a huge marker for this summer’s Paris 2024 Games as she dominated at the Final Olympic Qualification Championship Shotgun at the Lusail Shooting Complex.
The 40-year-old, who also took Olympic silver at the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Games, won gold in hot and windy conditions in Lusail, finishing four hits clear of Australia’s Laetisha Scanlan on 46.
The two Paris quota places on offer in this event went to France’s 34-year-old Melanie Couzy, who finished sixth in the final, and Kazakhstan’s Mariya Dmitriyenko, who took eighth place at the Rio 2016 Games.
Dmitriyenko earned her slot after finishing fourth in a shoot-off involving six athletes who had totalled 118 hits in qualifying, although she missed out on the final by one place.
The top three in the shoot-off were Couzy, Scanlan and Adriana Ruano Oliva of Guatemala – and the French athlete was the only athlete who made the final who had begun the championship eligible to win an Olympic quota place. The Kazakh athlete was under pressure to the end as the woman who finished one place behind her in the shoot-off, Turkiye’s Safiye Temizdemir, was also eligible to win a quota place, although the sixth-placed Fatima Galvez of Spain already had a slot won for Paris.
Garcia wins to secure Paris 2024 quota
Spain’s 20-year-old Andres Garcia put himself in line for his first Olympic appearance as he earned a Paris 2024 trap men quota place with victory.
Garcia – world junior champion in 2021 and European junior champion a year later – offered further evidence of his huge talent as he held off Italy’s 43-year-old Mauro De Filippis, already in possession of an Olympic quota place, to win gold by 46-45.
All except the Italian went into this tense final eligible to win a quota place, and the first to secure his country that honour was Turkiye’s 41-year-old Oguzhan Tuzun as he secured third place ahead of Malta’s Gianluca Chetcuti.
De Filippis, world silver medallist in 2019 and gold medallist at last year’s European Games, had topped qualification with 124 – just one shy of the maximum.
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