Clive Farrugia secures historic final berth in skeet at ISSF World Cup

Malta’s skeet shooter rewrote the history books in skeet shooting after he managed to qualify for the final at the ISSF World Cup in Larnaca, Cyprus.

This was a great result for the Malta Shooting Sport Federation, as it is the first time that a Maltese shooter reached a final in the skeet event at a World Cup.

Farrugia reached the final after hitting 121 clays from 125 before he was engaged in a shoot-off. Here he kept his composure to reach the final after taking the final spot with a +9 score.

With this result, Farrugia earned Bib number 4 and qualified to shoot in ranking match 2, however, he was ruled out after the first series with a score of 14/20.

Conclusively, the Maltese athlete finished eighth out of 119 shooters.

This outcome has strengthened Farrugia’s position in the qualification ranking for the Olympic Games in Paris next year.

There were four other Maltese shooters who took part in the event.

Brothers Marlon and Marcello Attard both finished their competition with a score of 113/125, whereas Liam Sciberras and junior athlete Matthias Azzopardi who were both competing for the Ranking Points Only (RPO) managed a score of 109/125 and 107/125 respectively.

The gold medal was won by Italy’s Erik Pittini, Eetu Kallioinen, of Finland, took silver, while Sven Korte, of Germany, won the bronze medal.

The ISSF World Cup Shotgun in Larnaca was declared officially open on March 26 with a total of 377 athletes from 60 nations participating in different disciplines.

The Malta Shooting Sport Federation will be represented in the trap competition with five shooters competing in the men’s division and two in the women’s class.