OLYMPIC hopeful Hagen Alexander Topacio became the first shooter to qualify for the national team seeing action in the 19th Hangzhou Asian Games, scoring 115 points to finish 76th in the qualifying round of the men’s trap event of the ISSF World Cup Series shotgun leg over the weekend in Doha, Qatar.
A silver medalist in last year’s Vietnam Southeast Asian Games, Topacio shot rounds of 22, 22 23, 25, 23, highlighted by a perfect 25 in the fourth round, to meet the qualifying standard of 115 points for the Asiad set by the Philippine National Shooting Association during its board meeting last Jan. 23.
PNSA member and shotgun shooter Raul Arambulo said Topacio’s score also surpassed the Olympic Minimum Qualifying Standard of 112, although the latter failed to make the cut of nine finalists for medal play in the competition organized by the International Shooting Sport Federation.
Beijing Olympic Games veteran Eric Ang and Carlos Carag shot 109 and 108 points, respectively, to place 101st and 104th in the four-day competition.
The ISSF World Cup series is one pathway to qualify for the Paris Olympics, with shooters aiming to garner qualifying points to determine their rankings at the end of the series where the topnotchers will clinch an Olympic ticket in each shooting event.
The ISSF has lined up four more ISSF World Cup shotgun competitions for the rest of the year, Arambulo said.
The next legs are set March 25 to April 3 in Larnaca Cyprus, April 25 to May 6 in Cairo Egypt, May 20 to 29 in Almaty, Kazakhstan and July 6 to 17 in Lonato, Italy.
“Hagen is pretty determined to qualify for the Olympic Games this time,” Arambulo said.
Topacio missed the bus for the Tokyo Summer Games when his runner-up finish in the 2018 Asian championships in Kuwait was voided by the world shooting body because the host country barred an Israeli judge from entering Kuwait.
With the shotgun events excluded in the Cambodia SEA Games in May, Arambulo said the national shotgun squad will focus on their Olympic qualifying bid and compete in other international shooting events.
