(L-R) Glenn Eller and Ashley Caroll pose for a photo at the ISSF World on April 10, 2019 in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.
Three-time national champion Ashley Carroll and 2008 Olympic gold medalist Glenn Eller paired up to win the silver medal Wednesday in ISSF World Cup Shotgun trap mixed team competition in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.
It’s the first medal for the U.S. at the competition, which includes 14 members of the shotgun national team.
It is also Eller’s first world cup medal in trap. He competed at all five of his Olympic Games in double trap, which was eliminated from the Olympic program for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, causing him to switch back to trap. Individually, he finished sixth in trap at the 2018 world championships and as high as 15th on the world cup circuit.
Eller and Carroll qualified in second place. In Wednesday’s final they missed three of their first nine targets and for a time were sitting in fifth place out of six finalists. They quickly heated up, however, and would miss just one of their next 41 targets to not only keep themselves in the competition but also move steadily up the leaderboard.
Toward the end it was between the U.S. and Germany, tied at 38 targets apiece, and with six shots to go it was still a battle to see who would take first and who would finish second. After a miss by Carroll, Germany pulled ahead by one point with five shots left on perfect shooting from Paul Pigorsch. Neither team missed down the stretch and Germany’s Katrin Quooss hit the crucial final shot to avoid a shoot-off. Germany finished with 47 targets, equaling a world record, and Carroll and Eller were just behind with 46.
Last month the duo of Kayle Browning and Brian Burrows won silver at the world cup stop in Acapulco, Mexico. Eller, the first American man to make five U.S. Olympic Teams in shotgun, teamed with Aeriel Skinner in that competition.
Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
