2000 Olympic Champ Milchev (UKR) pockets Skeet Gold in Nicosia: “ready for Rio!”

ISSF World Cup Shotgun · Nicosia, CYP

The 48-year old shooter beat Great Britain’s first-time participant Llewellin to secure the first skeet world cup gold of the season in Nicosia, Cyprus, in spite of the wind.

The 2000 Olympic Champion Mikola Milchev of Ukraine (48) won today’s Skeet Men Final at the 2016 ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Nicosia (CYP).

#Wind was the most used hashtag at the range, today. The gusts disturbed the shooters since the first qualification rounds, this morning, and that reflected on the scores, which turned out to be sensibly lower than the usual world cup averages.

Milchev, at his 52nd participation in an ISSF World Cup since 1986, took advantage of his long experience to climb up the scoreboard.

First he closed the qualifications in second, with 121 his out of 125 targets, and then shot a great semi-final, hitting 15 out of 16 targets.

Atop of the table, he met Great Britain’s 21-year old Ben William David Llewellin, who also scored 15 semi-final targets at his debut in a world cup competition.

The two athletes met in the Gold medal match, and dueled neck and neck right to the last target, when they ended up tied again, with 14 hits each.

In the following shoot-off for Gold, Milchev’s experience prevailed as the Ukrainian athlete scored 4 targets to Llewellin’s 3, securing the second world cup gold of his career.

21-year old Llewellin was left in second, gaining his first international medal.

Milchev had qualified to participate in the next Olympics last year, at the 2015 European Championship in Maribor, while Great Britain does not have a Quota place in the Skeet Men event.

“This is going to be my last Olympics. I will retire after Rio.” Milchev said after the award ceremony.

“The sport has been changing a lot in the last 16 years, since Sydney 2000. But the Olympics are always special, and I am still motivated as I was at my first participation. I have been working a lot to improve my results, and to get ready for Rio, I am looking forward to it!” Added the Ukrainian shooter, who competed in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympics, missing London 2012.

“Today, I used my experience to cope with the wind, which affected the whole competition. There were no easy targets here,” he concluded. “It has been tough.”

The Bronze medal match saw world’s best Skeet shooter, USA’s 26-year old two-time Olympic champion Vincent Hancock (USA), losing to Spain’s 2011 world champion Juan Jose Aramburu (34).

Aramburu and Hancock survived a shoot-off against Denmark’s Jesper Hansen to access the medal match, as they had finished the semi-final with an equal score of 14 hits. Then, in the medal match, it was Hancock who missed first, losing two targets throughout the first two stations, giving Aramburu the chance to move into the lead.

The Spanish shooter zeroed in, and scored 15 targets, climbing onto the third step of the podium, to gain his third world cup Bronze in career. Hancock took the 4th place with 14 hits.

Denmark’s Jesper Hansen took the 5th place with 14 hits in the semi-final, plus 4+4 targets in the shoot-off. Egypt’s Azmy Mehelba closed the match in 6th with 13 hits in the semi-final.

Marco Dalla Dea