Great satisfaction for the Beretta Skeet athletes at the 2020 Olympic Games which are currently taking place in Tokyo. After the disappointment for the non-participation of the British promise Amber Hill, which tested positive at Covid-19 a few days before the start of the competitions, the Beretta Team gets up with a good result in the women's Skeet and an extraordinary achievement in men's Skeet. At the end of today's finals, the Beretta Team adds 5 out of 6 medals to its palmarès with one gold, two silver and two bronzes. In women's Skeet, only Diana Bacosi and Wei Meng make it to the final. In addition to the burden for the lack of Amber Hill, a great pity for Austen Smith and Lucie Anastassiou, out of the final for a target and regret for Chiara Cainero, far from the top since the first competitions yesterday.
Diana Bacosi wins a silver with 55/60 points and enriches the Italian medal table, while Wei Meng wins the third place in the competition with 46/50. Great result in Male skeet: the first 9 places are covered only by Beretta athletes, for a final entirely internal to the Team: the Italian Tammaro Cassandro and the French Eric Delaunay, who get equal merit in the Olympic record as a result of qualification with 124/125 (surpassing the result of Al-Rashidi, previous record holder with 123/125), the very young Finnish Eetu Kallioinen, the Kuwaiti already bronze of Rio Abdullah Al-Rashidi, the Danish Jesper Hansen and the multi-medaled Vincent Hancock, in the running for his third Olympic award after gold in Beijing 2008 and gold in London 2012, who after a 100/100 misses three targets in the last series, risking to remain out of the final.
Too bad for the blue Tammaro Cassandro, who makes a mistake right from the start leaving room for colleagues and finishing sixth. Continuing with the race, Eric Delaunay also has to stop in fifth place and after him the young Eetu Kallioinen, with an extraordinary result, a fourth place in his first Olympic experience only 23 years. Three Skeet veterans remain in contention for the podium: 59-year-old Abdullah Al-Rashidi, 60-year-old Jesper Hansen and XNUMX-year-old (but already with two Olympic golds in tow) Vincent Hancock. After a hard-fought final, the American won his third gold with XNUMX targets out of XNUMX (Olympic record for the final), silver for Jesper Hansen who won his first Olympic medal with 55/60 targets and bronze for the Kuwaiti Abdullah Al-Rashidi with 46/50.
A very important result for Beretta and further confirmation for the DT11 platform, which turns 2021 in 10 and which, as already done for Rio 2016, also accompanies Beretta athletes to Tokyo towards their world titles. Daniele Bertoni, Deputy Director General of the Arms Factory Pietro Beretta, rejoices and declares: “5 medals out of 6, 3 podium platforms, athletes from 5 different nations: it is truly an exceptional result. We are really happy for this sparkling start. We are amazed and proud of Diana and Vincent who have grown up with us to become true shooting legends. Thanks to our fantastic athletes because every day they make us excited and stimulate us to do better and better! " “We are immensely happy for this unexpected result - declared Carlo Ferlito, General Manager - five precious medals that enrich our palmarès and testify once again the superior quality of our products.
Supporting our athletes in their Olympic path is a precise mission of our company: today athletes from three different continents have won, demonstrating our desire to be close to them and to all skeet shooting enthusiasts in every corner of the world. " “I followed the finals with pleasure - commented Franco Gussalli Beretta, President of Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta - I am always excited to see our athletes - who are now at home in Beretta - win. Thanks to them, we continue to have new incentives to produce more and more performing weapons and seeing them on the podium with them is the best possible closing of the circle. Once again we are not just talking about weapons but more generally about complete equipment. The vest of the Italian National team dressed by Diana Bacosi and those of the other athletes give elegance and character, a fundamental element for a better conveyance and diffusion of skeet shooting. " Beretta rejoices and celebrates its Skeet athletes waiting to cheer on its Trap shooters, competing for the qualifiers next Wednesday 28 July.