Russia’s Alexei Alipov won the Olympic gold medal in the men’s trap shooting competition yesterday with a near-flawless performance on a windy range carved into a mountain top outside Athens.
The 29-year-old from Moscow scored 149 out of a possible 150, including a perfect 25 in the final round. He also did not miss on four of the five 25-shot rounds of qualifying on Saturday and Sunday morning.
“I was fortunate to have just one miss,” said Alipov. “The weather conditions were having a great effect on everyone. We managed to find conditions similar to this in Cyprus and trained there for quite some time before the Olympics. That helped.”
Giovanni Pellielo of Italy took the silver medal with 146 points and Australia’s Adam Vella the bronze with 145.
Defending champion Michael Diamond of Australia was knocked out in the qualifying round despite the support of a big following of fans from his home country at the Markopoulo range.
Diamond, who won gold in both 1996 and 2000, was only eighth in qualifying, five points behind Alipov.
Alipov, winner of the World Cup in 2004 and 2002, was ninth at the Sydney Olympics.
Undaunted by gusts of hot dry air or a steady stream of low-flying aircraft landing at nearby Athens airport, the burly Russian from the Army Sports Club missed only one trap, or clay pigeon, all weekend and was in a class all by himself.
His scored equaled an Olympic record set by Diamond in 1996.
Alipov flashed a wide smile when he sealed the gold medal with two rounds to go. He had come to Athens openly vowing to win the gold.
American Lance Bade entered the 25-shot final round in a tie for second place with Pellielo, but he faltered with two missed shots near the end that allowed Vella, a plumber from Melbourne, to claim third. Bade finished fifth with 143 points.
Diamond, a former liquor store worker, overcame a long legal battle over dismissed assault charges filed by his former girlfriend as well as a separate legal fight when his late nomination knocked another shooter out of the team.
World champion Olena Kostevych of Ukraine won the gold medal in the women’s 10-meter air pistol competition after outdueling 1988 gold medalist Jasna Sekaric of Serbia and Montenegro in a shoot-off.
Kostevych had started the finals in eighth place after a disappointing qualifying round before steadily working her way toward the top in a finals that was marked at-times by erratic shooting from most of the field in the indoor Olympic venue.
She moved into the lead on the penultimate shot but was caught again by Sekaric, who had the best qualifying round, on the final round, forcing the one-shot shoot-off.
Kostevych and Sekaric both finished with 483.3 points. In the shoot-off, Sekaric quickly picked up her pistol and fired without delay to score a solid 9.4.
But Kostevych took her time, staring for a long moment at the target as the crowd went silent before firing a bull’s-eye. Her score of 10.2 was more than enough for the gold medal and a giant smile erupted on the face of the Ukrainian woman.
