MOSCOW –-(Ammoland.com)- Though the USA Shooting Team is bringing home 12 medals from the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship for Shotgun in Moscow, Russia, the silver lining to today’s final day of competition came when the team of newly-crowned world champion Dania Vizzi and her teammate Hayden Stewart won the silver medal in the Mixed Skeet Team event.
“It’s awesome competing with a partner,” said Vizzi. “It’s just a lot of fun. Even during the rounds we’d be like ‘You got this.’ And he would watch all my targets. “
“It is a lot of fun!” said Stewart. “You get to just go out there, have fun, fist bump each other and it was instant feedback too. So, if you’re having trouble on a particular station, you can tell your partner what to do and they’ll fix it the next round. It’s very helpful to have somebody out there watching you.”
Vizzi (Odessa, Florida) and Stewart (U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit/Greenwood, Indiana) advanced to the Semifinals with a score of 97 hits. (Each team member shot two rounds of 25 targets each). In the Semifinals, however, they were forced to face the other U.S. team of Kim Rhode (El Monte, California) and Christian Elliott (USAMU/Greenwood, Indiana). After besting Rhode/Elliott and the Chinese team of Meng Wei and Fan Zhang in a shootoff, Vizzi/Stewart advanced to the gold-medal match against Nadezda Konvalova and Nikolay Teplyy of Russia. Rhode/Elliott finished in fifth place.
Once in the gold-medal match, Vizzi/Stewart not only had to battle through 16 targets each in the quickly setting sun, but also an energetic home-country crowd. Before the final set of targets was thrown, National Coach Todd Graves called a timeout to the surprise of the crowd so he could speak to his athletes and the packed audience.
“He just wanted to remind us to stay focused, have fun, and that we were going home with another medal regardless,” said Vizzi.
Eventually the Russian team would beat Vizzi/Stewart 30-27 hits. This World Championship marks the first time the Mixed Skeet Team event was contested at a World Championship as the Mixed Team events have just recently been approved by the ISSF and the IOC for inclusion in the Olympic program. The U.S. Mixed Skeet Teams for this match were selected based on the scores from the first 75 targets during the individual competition.
The USA Shooting Team heads back to the United States with several record-breaking performances, as well as having won the second-most medals of any country competing at the World Championship (Italy won the most with 17). The U.S. won a total of five gold, two silver and six bronze medals.
More than 640 athletes from 76 countries competed in 22 medal events at this World Championship at the Foxlodge Shooting Range in the Moscow Region. Complete results from the ISSF World Championship for Shotgun. View results from individual events at the World Championship.
About USA Shooting:
USA Shooting, a 501c3 non-profit corporation, was chartered by the United States Olympic Committee as the National Governing Body for the sport of shooting in April 1995. USA Shooting’s mission is to prepare American athletes to win Olympic medals, promote the shooting sports throughout the U.S. and govern the conduct of international shooting in the country.
For more information, check them out on the website and on Twitter.