Mehelba’s gold medal at the World Championship is the first ever in the history of Egyptian shooting in the championship. His gold medal came in the skeet final event which was held in Osijek, Croatia, from 19 September to 12 October. The championship was a major qualification event for the 2024 Olympic Games, with quota places for the Games being distributed in both men’s and women’s individual trap and skeet competitions.
Mehelba snatched the gold medal when he won with the ‘Golden Hit’ in the skeet men’s final. Three-time Olympic champion Vincent Hancock from the US, who became Mehelba’s main rival in the fight for gold, won silver. Bronze was claimed by 2021 World Cup medalist Rashid Saleh Al-Athba from Qatar. All three won quotas to Paris 2024 for their countries. One more took Stefan Nilsson from Sweden who broke all 125 targets in qualification and finished in fourth place.
The three-week championship saw eight athletes winning quota places, four in each event. Two quotas were won by athletes from the US and one quota each from Italy, Great Britain, Slovakia, Ukraine, Egypt, Qatar and Sweden.
Already 13 countries have won places in the shotgun in two qualifying competitions: the European Championship and the World Championship.
Next is the World Championship rifle/pistol to be held in Cairo from 12 to 25 October. The championship, which will be held at the shooting arena of the Egypt Sports City at the New Administrative Capital, is also a quota qualifier for Paris 2024.
The 31-year-old Mehelba began shooting at 11. He was selected to join the Egyptian national men’s skeet shooting team at age 14 and made his first international competition appearance at 15.
The current world ranking No 1, Mehelba claimed the skeet gold medal at the Mediterranean Games held in Oran, Algeria, in July.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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