GUADALAJARA, Mexico (November 6, 2018)
In the lone medal event of the day at the Championship of the Americas (CAT) in Guadalajara, Mexico, the USA Shooting Team picked up another medal when Ashley Carroll (pictured left)and 17-year-old Grayson Davey (pictured right) won gold in the Trap Mixed Team event.
During Qualification, each member of the two-person mixed team shoots three rounds of 25 targets, with the combined scores of the two team members determining ranking for the Final in this newly-minted Olympic event. Davey (Anchorage, Alaska) only dropped one target today to finish Qualification with 74/75 hits and Carroll (Solvang, California) had 69 hits for the pair to enter the Final with the second-highest combined score.
Also qualifying for the Final was the other United States’ team of 2008 Olympic gold medalist Glenn Eller (Katy, Texas/U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit) and Aeriel Skinner (Jackson, California), who earned their slot with the fourth-highest combined score of 141 (Eller with 71/75 hits and Skinner with 69).
“I was feeling a little cocky today and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t – today it just happened to be one of those times it worked!” said Davey, who also just missed a spot in the Final of the individual Men’s Trap event yesterday.
“I may not have been confident in myself, but I was confident in him,” Carroll said of her teammate. Carroll won bronze in the individual Women’s Trap event yesterday. “But things were really working for us at the end of the Final.”
Once in the Final, each athlete switches with his/her teammate after every five shots. Over 50 targets in the Final, Carroll/Davey set an Americas record with 46 hits, which also included a perfect score over the final 20 targets of the match. Though the team of Skinner/Eller was tied with the eventual bronze-medal winning team from Guatemala 35 targets into the Final with 30 hits, Skinner/Eller was eliminated in fourth place due to having the lower bib number, which was based on their ranking in Qualification. No Olympic quotas were available in this event at CAT.
Trap Mixed Team Results
Competition continues tomorrow at CAT with Qualification and Finals in the Women’s 25m Sport Pistol event.
CAT is also the only opportunity for athletes to earn quotas for the Pan American Games next summer in Lima, Peru. Two Olympic quotas will be available in each individual event at the Pan American Games and is the last chance for athletes to earn quotas prior to the 2020 Olympic Games.
About CAT: The Shooting Confederation of the Americas (Confederaciòn Americana de Tiro - CAT) was founded and recognized by the ISSF in 1973 as the Continental Confederation for the Shooting Sport for all countries of the North and South America.
Shikar Safari Club International Foundation: USA Shooting received a generous grant of $50,000 to support the Pistol program from the Shikar Safari Club International Foundation. The grant will be used to prepare our athletes for 2020 Olympics through training camps and domestic/international competitions. Funds were used for the World Championship in South Korea and will be used for CAT as well. Throughout the years, the Shikar Foundation has been a huge supporter of USA Shooting; providing funds that would build a Trap bunker and Skeet field. They also financially supported a project for the 25m Rapid Fire and Sport Pistol targets that were converted in 2010 at the Olympic Shooting Center.