Chetcuti settles for silver in trap; Eleonor Bezzina misses out on medal

Gianluca Chetcuti had to settle for bronze in the men’s trap competition despite topping the standings in the qualifying round. Chetcuti was in brilliant form in the last two qualifying rounds making two straights and looked poised for the highest spot on the podium.

But in the final, Chetcuti missed several clays and almost struggled to finish in the top three, finally winning the bronze medal. The other shooter in the trap competition was James Galea, who made it to the final, finishing in fourth place.

Earlier Gianluca Chtcuti and James Galea managed to reach the final in the morning session, after a positive start on day 1.

Yesterday started with the final two rounds of 25 clays for the final qualification. Gianluca Chetcuti was in top form, hitting two straights of 25 to finish on top with 123 clays at the end of the qualifying round.

James Galea managed a straight in the fourth shoot and 23 in the fifth and final shoot to earn the sixth and final place for the finals. Galea finished the qualifying stage with a total of 119 clays.

There was a major disappointment in target shooting when Eleonor Bezzina, the winner of the gold medal in the 10m air pistol in the last two editions, missed out on a place on the podium as she could on finish fourth.

Bezzina had started the day solidly, reaching the final after placing second in the qualifying, compiling a score of 554 points, seven adrift of leader Saranovic of Montenegro.

In the final, Bezzina was off to a tricky start as she struggled to hit high-scoring shots, finding herself in fifth spot midway through the competition and in real danger of making an early exit from the final.

Bezzina burst to life in the final three rounds, hitting three successive 10.8 shots that moved her into a silver medal position.

But a lacklustre 8.2 shot in her next effort sealed her fate as he crashed out and was forced to settle for fourth place with a total score of 188.4.

Montenegro’s Nevena Saranovic took gold on 229.2 while Cyprus took the other podium spots through Constantina Pratsi (225.9) and Christiana Georgiou (206.5).