CHANGWON, South Korea (September 10, 2018)
Henry Leverett missed out on a medal today at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship at the Changwon International Shooting Range by the narrowest of margins – he was eliminated in fourth place following a shootoff in the Final of the Junior Men’s Rapid Fire Pistol event.
Leverett (Bainbridge, Georgia, 17) qualified for the Junior Men’s Rapid Fire Pistol Final by posting the second-highest Qualification score of 582. Once in the Final, Leverett fell to the back of the pack early with just two hits in his first series. By his third and fourth series, he had two series of perfect scores of five hits to move up the leaderboard. After the sixth series, Leverett and eventual bronze medalist Zhipeng Cheng of China were tied at 21 hits. Cheng emerged victorious in the shootoff to win the bronze medal. Haoje Zhu of China won the gold and Jaekyoon Lee of South Korea won the silver.
Leverett’s fourth-place finish today bests his sixth-place finish at the Junior World Cup in Suhl, Germany earlier this year – his highest international finish in this event prior to today. It’s also the highest finish for the United States in Junior Men’s Rapid Fire Pistol at the World Championship since Joseph Gonzalez won gold in 1994. Leverett’s score of 582 would also set a new Junior National Record.
“The one in Suhl was a great introduction – I didn’t do so great, but it was a great learning opportunity,” said Leverett. “Whereas here, I’m getting a little better, getting used to the international Final aspect, getting used to everything – I think that helped me to do better in this one. The shootoff was interesting. I was hoping there wasn’t going to be one but of course there was one! Shootoffs are always really fun, and I wasn’t shaking, I wasn’t nervous, I was just in the moment performing and just some of my shots were just below nines so not quite a hit. I’ll get them next time.”
Henry Leverett’s brother – Jack Leveret III (Bainbridge, Georgia) finished in 11th place in Junior Men’s Rapid Fire Pistol with a score of 572 and Paul Kang (Los Angeles, California) finished in 30th place with a score of 538.
In Men’s Rapid Fire Pistol, three-time Olympian Keith Sanderson (Colorado Springs, Colorado) finished in 23rd place with a score of 577. Brian Kim (Los Angeles, California) finished in 49th place with a score of 566 and Alex Chichkov (Temple Terrace, Florida) finished in 58th place with a score of 559.
Junior Men’s Three-Position Rifle was contested today with Will Shaner (Colorado Springs, Colorado) posting the highest U.S. finish of 31st place with a score of 1144. Shaner won bronze yesterday in Junior Men’s 50m Prone Rifle. Peter Fiori, Jr. finished in 32nd place with a score of 1144 and Jacob Buchanan (Spring, Texas) finished in 41st place with a score of 1134.
The 300m Prone Rifle competitions for Men and Women were also contested in challenging wind conditions today at the Jinhae Naval Shooting Range. The top finisher in the Men’s event was Michael McPhail (Darlington, Wisconsin/U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit), who finished in sixth place with a score of 588 – just two points out of bronze-medal position. McPhail also won bronze in Men’s 50m Three-Position Rifle and earned an Olympic quota for the United States just a few days earlier. Johnny Whidden, Jr. (Nashville, Georgia) finished in 27th place with a score of 581.
On the Women’s side, Sarah Beard (Danville, Indiana) finished in 13th place with a score of 580. Reya Kempley (Reno, Nevada) finished in 25th place with a score of 573 and Denise Loring (Manassas, Virginia) finished in 32nd place with a score of 562.
The Women’s and Junior Men’s Skeet competitions also kicked off Day One of Two with the first 75 targets thrown in the competition.
In the Women’s Skeet match, six-time Olympic medalist Kim Rhode (El Monte, California) is in seventh place with 70 targets. Caitlin Connor (Winnfield, Louisiana) is in eighth place with 70 targets and Amber English (Colorado Springs, Colorado/USAMU) is in 14th place with 69.
Leading the Junior Men’s competition is Nic Moschetti (Broomfield, Colorado) in third place with 73 targets. Eli Christman (Hixson, Tennessee) is in 15th place with 70 and Alex Ahlin (Bamberg, South Carolina) is in 37th place with 64 targets. An additional 50 targets and Finals will be contested tomorrow afternoon in the Junior Men’s and Women’s competitions.
Complete results: https://www.issf-sports.org/competition ... hipid=1750.
Competition continues tomorrow with the conclusion of these Skeet events, as well as the Junior Women’s Three-Position Rifle event.
The 52nd ISSF World Championship runs through September 15 at the Changwon International Shooting Range. More than 1,800 athletes from 91 countries have gathered in Changwon to compete in the 15 Olympic Shooting events, as well as 51 non-Olympic events across five disciplines.
Check out the complete World Champs U.S. Team preview in the latest edition of USA Shooting News: http://www.usashooting.org/news/usasnew ... index.html.
Complete schedule of the ISSF World Championship (Changwon is 13 hours ahead of the Eastern Time Zone): http://www.issf-sports.org/media/calend ... ith_VC.pdf.
Be sure to follow the team online throughout the World Championship:
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USA Shooting Team Event HASHTAG: #USASWCH18
For event pictures, go to USA Shooting’s Flickr site