Peter Wilson won an incredible gold in the men’s Olympic Double Trap shooting event. Wilson qualified in first position after shooting extremely well in the three qualifying rounds. He finished on 143/150 giving him a significant three point lead going into the final.
The final was incredibly tense and difficult to watch let alone compete in. Wilson started well before dropping a shot in his final shot of the first end.
Having done a bit of clay shooting (although never this discipline) this looked incredibly hard. This being trap shooting the targets fly away from the competitors two at a time at great speed. Any hesitation or the slightest error in judgement and the target would be missed.
Another miss from Wilson in the middle of the competition and his lead was down to just one point. I don’t know how on earth he was able to hold his nerve the pressure was huge. At least in most sports you can just get on with it but in shooting you have to wait and watch as your opponents hit their targets and pile the pressure on you. Wilson was by far the youngest shooter in the competition being 13 years younger than the next finalist.
A few mistakes from the other competitor and Wilson managed to extend his lead back up to four shots with just ten shots remaining.
Surely the gold would be his now. But No! A double miss at the beginning of the final end and his lead was cut to just two! If he did it again the gold medal would be gone. My heart was pounding at this stage goodness knows what Peter was feeling.
Somehow Peter composed himself and nailed the last six shots, but so did the Swede Hakan Dahlby leaving Peter needing to hit one of his last two remaining clays. He didn’t disappoint and smashed the final two clays to become Britain’s 4th Gold medal winner at London 2012 and the first British shooter to win a medal since Richard Faulds won in Sydney in 2000. Brilliant! Well done Peter!
Peter Wilson 188 – Great Britain
Hakan Dahlby 186 – Sweden
Vasily Mosin 185 – Russia
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