Ahrens excels ahead of World Cup

Barely two months before the start of the 2016 Olympic Summer Games in Brazil’s metropolis Rio de Janeiro, Namibia’s qualified Olympic trap shooter Gaby Ahrens won the third national trails in spectacular fashion over the weekend in Windhoek.
The current African champion was in a class of her own during the tournament on the military basis Luiperdsvalley south of the capital.
Together with Johan Venter, Ahrens hit 107 targets during qualification to qualify for the semi-finals where she met six other shooters who qualified for the final.
Ahrens calmly hit a near-perfect 13 out of 15 clay targets to secure her place in the final where she faced an equally ­impressive Venter, who hit the same score to qualify for the gold medal match.
Ahrens, the 2010 Commonwealth bronze medallist, performed confidently after the success in the morning and made light work of Venter in the battle for the first spot, being on target 13 times. Venter hit 11 of his 15 targets to secure the silver medal.
The event was great preparation for Ahrens ahead of her travels to South Africa’s national championships this week and the World Cup in San Marino the week after, as her Road to Rio starts to take promising shape.
Ahead of the trails, the Clay Target Shooting Association of Namibia (CTSA) also took the opportunity to hand over a cheque to Ahrens in recognition of her achievements and supporting her in her quest to excel at her third Olympic Games appearance.
Ahrens gratefully received N$11 000 from her association’s chairman, Mr Rolf Trossbach.