The European Shotgun Championships - Double Trap World Record Broken

The 2018 European Shotgun Championships have been underway for over a week now and there are still 5 days left of the event held in Leobersdorf, Austria - showcasing the continents very best shotgun shooters of current times. Yesterday was the turn of the women’s Double Trap final, and it proved to be a thrilling watch as we saw the world record being broken.

The victory in the women’s event went to Italian national Claudia De Luca who stormed away from everyone else with a very impressive score of 131 - a new world best that’s also only 17 points away from the current men’s world record. Second place went to Zuzana Stefecekova of Slovakia with 119, meaning De Luca was well clear with the gold medal. Her Italian teammate Sofia Maglio came in Bronze to round off a good day for the national team after Antonio Barilla took the win in the men's event.

This isn’t a rare occasion for Italy - their shooting success has been notorious for many years and they currently top the table for most medals won at every world championships combined with 35 in total. The world record of De Luca makes it their 4th current world record holder in shotgun disciplines.

There is a days break of action today before the Skeet shot events start on Wednesday, you can follow them here.

If you’re unaware of how Double Trap events work, the contestant will try to hit clay pigeon discs that are moving away from them, just like most shooting sports. For double trap in particular, two of these clays will leave firing machines at the same time, so that the contestant has two discs in the air at the start of each round. One will come from the left, the other from the right, but both heading away from them at different angles. Using your shotgun, you’ll have the chance to take one shot at each target, trying to hit both. Women will get 60 rounds of doubles so a total of 120 targets to try and hit, whilst men get 75 rounds of doubles and then an additional 25 round final for the best six-shooters.

Sadly, the event has now been taken off of the Olympic roster for both genders - the women’s event was an Olympic discipline for three games in the late 90s and early 00s, whilst the men’s event lasted until the most recent Rio Olympic Games, but will not be a part of the 2020 Tokyo edition.

The championships is a really thrilling couple of weeks of shooting so we’d recommend everyone to watch the final few days online - if we can manage to raise it’s profile, Double Trap may be back at an Olympic Games in the near future!