At the Buenos Aires, Argentinean ISSF World Cup overnight, Paris Olympic bronze medallist, Penny Smith, secured the gold medal in the Women’s Trap event.
In the first World Cup of the 2025 season, Smith shot a qualification score of 121 out of 125 targets; equal top qualifier with Italy’s Silvana Stanco. With a finals berth confirmed, Smith and Stanco entered a sudden death shoot off to determine who would wear bib number 1 in the final. Shooting 5 shots to Stanco’s 4, Smith secured the premier bib which holds significance in determining elimination ties in the final.
In the Men’s Trap competition, fellow Australian Mitch Iles also shot a leading qualification score of 121 out of 125, and secured bib number 2 for the final.
Of their qualification score and the strong wind conditions, Smith and Iles reflected, “It was good to shoot 121 in trying conditions. The weather has been challenging for the past 3 days and it wasn’t much easier in the final.”
With qualification held over three days instead of the typical two days, when asked if this changes their process, Smith and Iles said, “No, it is all the same and you just have to focus for an extra day.”
In the Women’s final, Smith missed a few targets early on before demonstrating her competitive strength and determination to take the lead, only missing 1 target in the last 31. Finishing the final with a score of 44 out of 50 targets, 2 targets ahead of silver medallist Carey Garrison (USA), Smith said, “It was a solid final with the weather a challenge but I just had to keep working my way through. My back half of the final was really good.”
Chinese Taipei’s Wan-Yu Liu took the women’s bronze medal.
Following his impressive qualification score, Iles shot 18 out of 25 targets in the first phase of the men’s final and was eliminated in sixth position, his equal best performance in a senior World Cup. Asking what key takeaways he has from competition, 26 year old Iles reflected, “If I do my best, it will be enough to get me into the final.”
The other Australians competing in the individual men’s and women’s trap events included James Willett, Gabe Sensi, Milad Nasr, Kiara Dean and Laetisha Scanlan.
With one day of competition remaining in Buenos Aires, Smith and Iles will join forces to compete in the Trap Mixed Teams event later today. When asked if preparation is any different for a team event they said, “No, we will do the best we can in the mixed teams event. Everything is the same as an individual event.” Willett and Dean will compete as the second Australian Team.
The Buenos Aires World Cup is one of two back-to-back South American World Cups this month. The Australian Shotgun Team travels to Peru for the Lima World Cup in the coming days and Smith and Iles said, “We will have a few quiet days of rest before we leave for Peru then we will hopefully get some training on the range when we arrive and back into the swing of competition.”
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