The UAE’s Saif Bin Futrais leads the way in men’s skeet qualifying

Al Ain: The UAE’s Saif Bin Futrais scored a perfect 50 in the first two rounds of qualifying for the men’s skeet competition on Monday in the ongoing ISSF Shotgun World Cup Finals held at Al Ain Equestian, Shooting and Gulf Club.

Meanwhile, Italy’s Chiara Cainero proved her class by winning the women’s skeet competition.

Bin Futrais, who won the bronze medal at an event last month in Acapulco, Mexico, shared the lead of the first day of qualifying with another 12 shooters, who all scored a perfect 50 hits including Abdullah Al Rashidi from Kuwait, Masoud Hamad from Qatar and Smit Singh from India.

Shaikh Saeed Bin Maktoum Al Maktoum is placed near the top of the leaderboard with 48, having scored 24, 24, followed by Mohammad Ahmad with 46 (22,24).

Meanwhile, Russians Albina Shakirova and Olga Panarina and Italy’s Chiara Cauberi all broke the world record of the women’s skeet, having scored a total of 73 hits each in the qualifiers on Monday. The old world record was 72 hits and was achieved only last month in Acapulco by Russian Landish Kvartalova and American Jaiden Grinnell, who both were absent from the competition.

Also taking their places in the semi-finals were Sixue Huang and Heng Zhang both from China and Briton Elana Ellen, who had to take part in a shoot-off to reach the semi-finals.

Panarina showed her true class when she led the semi-final competition with 12 points out of 15, followed by Cainero, Allen and Shaikirova, who all scored 11. There followed a shoot-off, which resulted in Cainero playing against Panarina for gold and the other two facing each other for the bronze.

It was Cainero who won the gold with 14 hits, one more than Panarina, while Shakirova beat Allen with the same result for the bronze.