"VAN" (Sports Desk - 06.04.2025) :: The United States won both skeet titles on the line today, thanks to the efforts of Dania Vizzi and Christian Elliott at the ISSF World Cup in Buenos Aires.
There was an American one-two in the women's skeet, with Dania Vizzi defeating Kimberly Rhode after a dramatic shoot-off for the gold medal.
The pair were early leaders in the competition with strong challenges coming from Arina Kuznetsova, as well as the Italians Simona Scocchetti and Martina Bartolomei, following the exit of Vanesa Hockova from Slovakia. Bartolomei would exit in fifth via an inferior seeding, with her compatriot being spared in the tiebreaker.
Vizzi had a one-shot lead over the rest with four athletes and four shots remaining until the next elimination. Despite a strong comeback, Scocchetti would miss the medals after missing her final target. Kuznetsova had to clear all four to guarantee a medal - and she did. However, that would just be bronze as she lost contact with Rhode.
Rhode had for a long period, trailed Vizzi by one shot and both would match each other's cards. That was until the three-time Olympic champion cleared her final four targets, while Vizzi missed the low house target to take it to a tie. Rhode was the first to miss in the shoot-off on her fourth target, and with two clean hits, Vizzi secured her third individual World Cup.
Following this, Christian Elliott had a near-perfect run to the men's gold medal. Elliott scored 58 from a possible 60, with his lead never looking in doubt. The American was looking capable of a faultless final before finally conceding a point on his 44th shot. Another miss came on shot 54, but by this point he was far ahead of Italy's two-time Olympic champion Gabriele Rossetti, who finished with a respectable total of 56.
Rossetti's compatriot Elia Sdruccioli took the bronze medal to deny the South American Hector Andres Flores of Chile. Kazakhstan's Ilya Penkov and Georgios Achilleos of Cyprus finished fifth and sixth.
Sun Yujie won China's second gold medal of the week, claiming victory in the women's 25m pistol final.
The 20-year-old had a perfect World Cup debut, winning by three shots for the title ahead of India's Esha Singh with a total score of 38.
Sun's teammate Feng Sixuan took the bronze medal, ahead of Tien Chia-chen of Chinese Taipei and Germany's Doreen Vennekamp, who today celebrated her 30th birthday. Tien twice survived shoot-offs to make it contention for a medal, but struggled in her final five shots to place fourth. Manu Bhaker of India, Veronika Major of Hungary and Ecuador's Andrea Perez Pena placed sixth to eighth.
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