Olympic skeet athletes Eric Delaunay and Lucie Anastassiou be competing in the Chateauroux National Tournament that starts today, doubling as shooting sport’s Test Event for the Paris 2024 Games.
They are among 79 shooting sport athletes who will go through their paces at the National Sports Shooting Centre in Chatearoux which will host Olympic competition this summer.
Delaunay will seek to contest his third Olympics when competition gets underway on July 27, the day after the Games Opening Ceremony.
The 36-year-old from Normandy finished seventh at the Rio 2016 Games and fifth in the Tokyo 2020 Games.
Should he manage to maintain that sequence of progression it would be a hugely popular achievement in his home country.
Delaunay, who will be representing his club BTC Breville, has twice been tantalisingly close to the podium at the World Championships, having twice placed fourth, and he is currently world-ranked 14 in the skeet men’s event.
Anastassiou, 31, who will compete for her La Rochelle-based BTC Chatelaillon club, finished ninth in the skeet women event at the Tokyo 2020 Games.
She has also won two ISSF World Cup titles and was European champion in 2017.
She is currently world-ranked third.
Delaunay and Anastassiou combined to win World Cup mixed team silver in Cairo on January 31 (pictured).
The event at Chateauroux, overseen by the French Shooting Federation (FFTir), is set to run until Sunday (April 14).
During the course of event a range of technical matters will be assimilated ahead of the Olympic competition.
