PORPETTO, Italy — Amaris Cerra entered the junior women’s skeet final at the ISSF Junior World Cup Shotgun through the smallest opening on the scoreboard and left with a bronze medal around her neck.
Hailing from El Paso, Texas, Cerra broke 24 targets in the eight-woman final on Sept. 15, finishing behind a pair of Individual Neutral Athletes (AIN). Varvara Zaitseva won gold with 30, one target ahead of Kseniia Shuliak.
Qualification ran 125 targets over two days, with 75 on Monday and 50 on Tuesday morning. Cerra opened with 21 and never went backward, posting rounds of 22, 22, 23 and 24 for a 112 total. That tied her with Shuliak for the last two places in the final, and a 2-1 shoot-off loss dropped the American to eighth. Five shooters sat one target back at 111, fellow American Chloe Chaleunsinh among them.
Italy’s Eleonora Ruta and Czech shooter Simona Fukova led qualification with 118 apiece, with Ruta taking their shoot-off 6-5. Neither reached the medal rounds. Once the final began, the qualification order meant little.
Great Britain’s Jessica Louise Hambrook and AIN shooter Olesia Atamanenko, third and fourth after qualifying, went out first after the opening 12 targets. Cerra had hit 10 of her first 12 by then. Ruta and Fukova followed at 24 targets with 18 hits each, while Cerra held 19.
Her tightest moment came at 28 targets. Cerra stood at 22 against 21 for the Czech Republic’s Tereza Mlikova, and that single target sent Mlikova out in fourth and secured a medal for the American. Cerra’s run ended at 32 targets, two behind the AIN pair, who were tied at 26 going into the gold-medal series. Zaitseva hit her final four targets, and Shuliak missed her last one.
The result marks a sharp climb from a year ago. At the 2025 ISSF Junior World Cup in New Delhi, Cerra finished 13th in qualification with a 99. In Porpetto, she shot 13 targets better and reached the podium.
Among the 35 athletes in the field, Chaleunsinh finished 11th for the U.S. with 111. Gracelynn Marie Hensley placed 16th with 109, and Madalynn Schroder was 32nd with 93.
See the full results of the 2026 Junior World Cup for Shotgun in Porpetto, Italy, at the ISSF website. Learn more about USA Shooting at usashooting.org.
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