They entered the range as the number 1 favorite team, and they left it around an hour later as the number 1 team in the world.
34-year-old Zuzana Rehak Stefecekova and 42-year-old Erik Varga brought the Slovak flag on top of the Trap Mixed Team podium for the third time in the last four competitions, ruling the final at the ISSF World Championship in Changwon (KOR) after claiming the brightest medal at two of this year’s World Cup stages.
Previously during the championship, both of them had also won an individual medal: Rehak Stefecekova took gold in yesterday’s Trap Women event, while Varga placed 2nd in the Trap Men final, two days ago. Moreover, in both occasions the Slovak shooters secured an Olympic quota place for their country.
“It’s hard to put it into words,” she said. “I think the medal can speak for themselves. We had no idea this championship could be so good for us.”
“It’s very important that we won the quota place also in this event, this means a second Slovak team can compete with us in the team event at the Olympics,” she added.
“It’s been a very tough competition for me, I had to miss the whole 2017 season because I broke my shoulder in a fall in 2016, and it still gives me a lot of pain,” commented Varga. “I owe a lot to my wife: she traveled with me and treated me before and after each shooting round.”
The second Olympic slot was awarded to the silver medalist team — composed by Russian Federation’s Alexey Alipov (43) and Ekaterina Rabaya (24) — who finished five hits behind their Slovak rivals, hitting 40 clays out of 50.
Barely missing the second Olympic quota up for grabs, Great Britain’s 29-year-old Kirsty Barr and 31-year-old Aaron Heading took a bitter bronze medal with 33 hits out of 40 clays. The very last target turned out to be decisive for the British the team, who left the match because of a lower qualification ranking.
Two Italian teams placed just outside of the podium: team 2 — featuring 25-year-old Silvana Stanco and 38-year-old Mauro De Filippis — preceded Giovanni Pellielo (48) and Jessica Rossi (26), placing 4th with 28 crushed clays out of 35, while team 2 signed off in 5th position with 22 hits out of 30.
Turkey’s Safiye Sariturk (22) and Oguzhan Tuzun (35) followed in 5th position with 18 hits out of 25 targets.
The ISSF World Championship in Changwon (KOR) will continue tomorrow with four more finals: the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Women, scheduled at 12:15 pm (UTC+9:00), the Trap Mixed Team Junior, taking place at 2:00 pm, the 25m Pistol Women, taking place at 3:30 pm, and the 25m Pistol Women Junior, which will close the competition day at 4:45 pm.
Footage of the Olympic events will be distributed worldwide via EBU and broadcasted live on the ISSF website, on the Federation’s Livestream channel and on its official Facebook page.
Live results, news and updates will be available on www.issf-sports.org and on all ISSF social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Weibo and Youku.