Russia’s and Germany’s Gold medals seal the Junior World Cup in Suhl

The penultimate official event of the ISSF Junior World Cup crowned Germany’s Yannick Hofmann as the Gold medallist of the Skeet Men event. Hofmann, who entered last year’s Junior Cup semifinal, placing 6th, nailed the first international Gold medal of his young career.

In the Gold medal match, where he and Cyprus’ Nicolas Vasiliou entered with an almost-perfect 15-out-of-16 semifinal score, Hofmann grabbed the lead midway through the final, surviving a late miss and finishing with 13 target hits against his rival’s 12.

On his fourth and final station, in fact, Vasiliou missed his very last target, and he failed to tie the score at 13, and surrendering to Hofmann.

In the Bronze medal match, Alexey Belov of the Russian Federation bested Denmark’s Mikkel Petersen, who also missed his very last target, letting his Russian rival claim the Bronze medal with the final score of 14-hits-to-13.

Out of the medal matches, finishing 5th with 13 semifinal targets placed Denmark’s Emil Kjelgaard Petersen, followed by Great Britain’s Jack Fairclough, 6th with 12.

Denmark’s two finalist alongside their teammate Alexander Karlsen, secured the team’s Gold medal, followed in 2nd place by Finland’s Aleksi Ahokas, Sami Aaltonen and Esko Tiainen. Belov, Aleksandr Krasnyatov and Mikhail Sharapov of Russia completed the team’s podium of the Skeet Men Junior event.

For the Skeet Men Junior complete results click here.

Maxim Kabatskiy of the Russian Federation pocketed the last individual Gold medal up for grabs in Suhl, where the ISSF Junior World Cup concluded yesterday.

In the Gold medal match Kabatskiy, whose previous best result was a 6th place he nailed at the 2015 ISSF World Championship in Lonato (ITA), faced and beat Czech Republic’s Josef Navrtil, who placed 56th in the same competition.

Despite missing his very last target, Kabastkiy, who previously concluded the semifinal with the highest score, maintained his narrow lead on Navratil, who also missed his last clay and failed to match his rival’s score of 11 hits, concluding with 10.

In the previous Bronze medal match, Australian shooter Jack Wallace, Junior Silver medallist at the 2014 World Championship in Granada (ESP), beat France’s Damien Ichard with the final score of 13 hits to 8.

A four-way shoot-off was needed at the end of the semifinal, as Navratil, Ichard, Wallace and Yang Kun-Pi of Chinese Taipei all finished with 11 hits. In the tie-breaker, Yang missed first, placing 5th with 11+0 target hits.

Eliminated after the semifinal round, Bulgaria’s Ivan Georgiev concluded 6th with 10 target hits.

On the team’s podium, Australia’s Wallace was joined by brothers Samuel John and Adam Joshua Bylsma on the highest step, followed by Italy’s Simone Spina, Simone D’Ambrosio and Nino Cuomo, who pocketed the Silver medals, and by France’s Ichard, Jason Picaud and Theo Denis, 3rd and winners of the team’s Bronze medal.

For the Trap Men Junior complete results click here.

Italy concluded the ISSF Junior World Cup atop of the overall medal standings, thanks to a combination of 7 Gold medals, 4 Silver ones and 1 Bronze one.

The Russian Federation, despite securing the highest number of medal in the whole competition, followed in 2nd place with 5 Golds, 6 Silvers and 9 Bronzes. Germany, the host country, placed 3rd with 5 Gold, 3 Silver and 3 Bronze medals.