Italy's
Alessia Iezzi won the
women's junior trap event, her career's first gold medal, at the
2015 ISSF Shotgun World Championship in Lonato, Italy.
Iezzi became a junior World Champion as she
beat Russia's Yulia Tugolukova in a shoot-off (4-3) after the gold medal match. The shoot-off broke the 11-11-tie Iezzi and Tugolukova were in at the end of the gold medal match.
Tugolukova was in the lead for most part of the match. Iezzi caught up just in time. Before the final three shots,
Tugolukova was one up.
Then everything changed -
Tugolukova missed two targets in a row; Iezzi hit both. She caught up with and overtook
Tugolukova.
On the final shot, though, Iezzi missed her target - one that would have given her the gold.
Tugolukova hit hers, and the two athletes went on to compete in a shoot-off.
In the bronze medal match, USA's
Ellie Roditis hit 11 targets - just enough to beat her opponent, Italy's Maria Lucia Palmitessa, who hit 10.
Taking advantage of Palmitessa's poor start (three misses out of her first five targets), Roditis took an early lead. But her third and fourth series were bad - she missed three targets, and Palmitessa overtook her.
Like Tugolukova in the gold medal match, Palmitessa was leading by one target before the final series (9-8). Then she missed both of her final targets. Roditis did not miss any, and took the bronze.
To decide who would compete in which medal match, four athletes entered a shoot-off. Iezzi, Tugolukova, Roditis, and Palmitessa were all tied at 12 hits after the semifinal ended. Spain's Cristina Beltran and Australia's Penny Smith closed respectively in 5th (11 hits) and in 6th (9).
Despite missing the individual gold, Tugolukova came in first in the team competition. Her 68 hits, together with Saveleva's 66 and
Subbotina's 64, gave Russia the team gold (198 hits).
Iezzi's Italy came in second, just one hit behind (197). Fiammetta Rossi (58) joined Iezzi and Palmitessa on the podium.
Like in the individual competition, Roditis came in third - the United States of America won the bronze as Roditis, Hambuchen, and Hampson added up to 186 hits.
Iezzi won her career's first gold at her last chance to compete as a junior.
"I said to myself, 'No,'" said Iezzi of the moment when she was one target behind Tugolukova, and just one series was left in the gold medal match. She wanted to win.
In 2013, Iezzi realized she'd only be able to compete in two more competitions before becoming a senior. "I thought," says Iezzi, "well, 'I want to win one of those two.'" So she did.