Trap, Team, Mixed

The last of the three new mixed team shooting events was the trap event. Unlike the other two mixed team events, it was first seen at the 2017 World Shotgun Championships and the Australians, Penny Smith/Thomas Grice, became the inaugural champions. At the 2018 World Championships, the gold was won by Zuzana Štefečeková/Erik Varga, who also competed in this event in Tokyo. Silver went to Yekaterina Rabaya/Aleksey Alipov and bronze was won by Kirsty Barr/Aaron Heading. While Rabaya did not compete in Tokyo, Alipov did with a different partner. Barr competed in this event under her married name Hegarty and was partnered with Matthew Coward-Holley, with Heading competing only in the individual trap event in Tokyo. The 2019 World Shotgun Championships winners Laetisha Scanlan/James Willett also partnered up in Tokyo, with silver won by Yuliya Saveleva/Maksim Smykov (RUS) and bronze by Smith/Grice at those championships.

The qualification round was over 150 shots in total, with 75 by each shooter, and was topped by Fátima Gálvez/Alberto Fernández and Alessandra Perilli/Gian Marco Berti with 148 as both pairs missed only two targets. They were followed by Štefečeková/Varga and Madelynn Bernau/Brian Burrows, who both scored 146. As there was no second qualification stage like in the other two team events, the first two qualified for the gold medal match and the next two for the bronze medal match. A shoot-off for both was necessary to determine the places 1-2 and 3-4. This was important because in both medal matches the better placed team was allowed to start first.

The bronze medal match went into a shoot-off and Bernau/Burrows secured bronze with the third shot. During the match Štefečeková/Vargahad already led by three targets after 42 shots, but Bernau/Burrows managed to come back in the last eight shots to tie 42-42. In the gold medal match Gálvez/Fernández took the lead after 32 shots and held the first position for the next 18 shots to win gold by a margin of one. With Perilli/Berti winning silver for San Marino they gave the tiny country only their second ever Olympic medal, only two days after Perilli had won their first ever medal with bronze in the women’s trap. The gold medal for Gálvez/Fernández was also historical as it was the first ever shooting gold medal for Spain.