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An extraordinary snowfall covered Beijing’s shooting range of fresh snow. The home shooter Liu Yingzi did not give up and secured Gold with five targets of advantage on her frozen opponents.

Minus three Celsius degrees, 30 centimetres of fresh snow, and an extraordinary snowfall: today’s Trap women final and, more generally, the whole day of competition, took place under these severe weather conditions.

China’s Liu Yingzi, a 2007 World Champion, did not seem impressed about the snow. The 38-year old shooter climbed in the lead since the first qualification rounds, walking into the final with a consistent advantage of 7 targets on the other finalists.

Nobody could catch the leader up: while the sport venue’s personnel was shovelling the snow off the final range, Liu managed her margin on the followers, ending up on the highest step of the podium with a total score of 84 hits (69+15). The Chinese shooter had finished in third at the 2007 edition and in second at last year’s Final in Minsk, and today’s was her first time on the highest step of an ISSF World Cup Final.

Five targets behind her, Slovakia’s Zuzana Stefecekova climbed from the fifth place after the qualification to win Silver with a total of 79 hits, shooting the highest final score of today’s match, 18 targets. The Olympic Silver medallist of the last Games had won the 2004 World Cup Final in Maribor, and then placed in second at the 2006 World Cup Final in Granada.

Snow turned in favour of the Olympic Champion, the Finnish shooter Satu Makela-Nummela, used to train in these weather conditions. She made it into the final with the lowest qualification score, 60 hits, climbing then up to the third place with 15 hits. As she tied Germany’s Susanne Kiermayer, the two shooters had to pass through a shoot-off to decide the Bronze medal. Kiermayer shot first, missing her clay in the windy snowfall, letting the Olympic Champion win the Bronze with t a total score of 75+1 hits.

At the same time, snow dropped the chances of victory of the 17-year old World Champion, Italy’s Jessica Rossi, competing here in her first ISSF World Cup Final. Rossi, one of the most favourites shooter to finish on Beijing podium, struggled throughout the all final, clearly suffering the freezing wind blowing on the range. “It was extremely cold, not to talk about the visibility…” She hit 9 out of 15 targets through the final round, placing in fifth with a total of 72+1 hits as she outdid China’s Lu Xingyu in a shoot-off.