With the European Shooting Championships (Shotgun) still going on in Larnaca, there were two more chances for British shooters to punch their tickets to Tokyo early on in the cycle in the Men’s and Women’s Skeet competitions, with the top two getting a place.
In the Men’s Skeet, Ben Llewellin, Karl Frederick Killander, and Michael Gilligan lined up for GB: in qualification, the top eight would advance after 125 targets. It was Llewellin that qualified for GB in an impressive second place, hitting 123. Killander finished 47th after hitting 116, while Gilligan came in 54th hitting 114. Llewellin then advanced to the ranking match, made up of four athletes: they would hit twenty shots, and whoever was last was eliminated, and then after thirty, another would be eliminated: the other two would make the medal match. Llewellin was in the second match with Jasper Hensen of Denmark, Mikola Milchev of Ukraine, and Yaroslav Startsev of Georgia. After twenty shots, Hansen led on nineteen, with Llewellin and Startsev close on eighteen, while Milchev was eliminated on sixteen. In the next series of ten, all of them hit nine, so Hansen would go through with 28, while Llewellin and Startsev on 27 went to a shoot-off. Llewellin just took it, 4-3.
Hansen and Llewellin were joined in the final by Luigi Lodde of Italy and Jakub Tomecek of the Czech Republic. Here, after twenty shots, the bottom athlete would be eliminated, and then the same after thirty and forty until we had a winner. After twenty, Lodde and Tomecek were perfect, while Llewellin had nineteen and Hansen was eliminated on seventeen. Lodde stretched his perfect run to thirty, but Tomecek missed two creating a narrow opening for Llewellin, but he missed two as well finishing on 27. This meant it was an agonising bronze for the Welshman who just missed out on an Olympic place this time.
On the women’s side, Jessica Louise Burgess, Emily Jane Hibbs and Amber Hill went for GB. Hill came joint third with 116, after a five-way shoot-out her final ranking was confirmed as sixth. Burgess came joint eighth with 114 but came last in a six-way shoot-out for the final spot, missing the final rounds. Hibbs came 19th with 112 hits. In the second ranking match, Hill was joined by Danka Bartekova of Slovakia, Marjut Heinonen of Finland and Konstantia Nikolaou of Cyprus. She had no problems though, hitting her first twenty perfectly while Bartekova got ninteen, Nikolaou seventeen and Heinonen on sixteen, eliminating the Finn. Hill extended her perfect run to thirty while Bartekova finished on 29 and Nikolaou on 24. Bartekova and Hill were joined in the final by Diana Bacosi of Italy and Nadine Messerschmidt of Germany, and it was a high qualify field. After twenty shots, Messerschmidt led with a perfect twenty with Bacosi, Bartekova and Hill all on nineteen; Bacosi was eliminated based on her ranking match score. Messerschmidt and Bartekova hit eight of their next ten while Hill hit a perfect ten: this meant Bartekova was eliminated on 27 while Hill now led 29-28. But in the next nine hits, Hill had missed one to level it up, with one shot left each it was now 37-37. But Hill hit her final shot while the German missed to win gold for Great Britain and a Paris quota place.
The next chance for our Skeet shooters will be at this month’s world championship coming up in Osijek, Croatia. The next shooting action is the European Championship (25m/50m) in Wrocław, Poland.
GB Games 