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Nicolás Pacheco went to a shooting range for the first time with his family when he was 12 years old, and he was about the size of a competition shotgun. The coach of the Peruvian team saw him shooting a couple of rounds and approached his family: “He's skilled,” he said. As they were fans of hunting and shooting for a very long time, they agreed with no conditions.
From that moment on, Nicolás—now at 24 years old—started training as a hobby until he was 15 when he participated in his first World Cup in Germany and placed fifth. Then, the Peruvian shooter won the 2012 World Trap Junior Championships, and one year later he ranked second in the World Skeet Championships held in Lima. He was gifted.
“It’s strange for a kid of that age to take that place. Kids between 19 and 21 usually win,” he says. He realized: “I'm really good.” Then, Nicolás put aside his dream of becoming a professional football player to start shooting with greater projection. Towards the future.
He started studying business administration at the age of 17 and represented us at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Four years later, he did not get a quota for the Rio 2016 Olympics. But now Nicolás has another opportunity to participate in the most important sports event.
From August 2 to 3, Pacheco will represent us in the skeet event of the Lima 2019 Pan American Games. The new Las Palmas Air Base Shooting Range will be the venue in which the top athletes of the Americas will compete to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
GOLD IS THE TARGET
Pacheco has won ten medals in the Olympic cycle. He has won medals in the last three Bolivarian Games (Sucre 2009, Trujillo 2013, and Santa Marta 2017). He has also won the last two editions of the South American Games (Santiago 2014 and Cochabamba 2018.) Shooters always look for perfection.
“To get to the Pan American final, 125 shots are required. The top six scores qualify. For example, I scored 122 points at the World Cup held in Mexico; that is an almost-perfect score, but ten athletes were tied for just one quota.”
Pacheco was in the last edition of the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games, but he did not reach the podium. He wants revenge in Lima. “I ranked third but lost in the tie-break. By then, the rules of the game changed and for the final, you started from scratch, the qualifying score was not counted. I didn't do well in the semifinal.”
NATIONAL SPORT
Shooting is a paradox in Peru: surprisingly Peruvian statistics are—proportionally—similar to Italian statistics. Three of the four Olympic medals Peru has won come from shooting, but even so, here it is not a popular sport.
“That’s because there are no many ranges,” Nicolás says. “The only ones are in military bases, so it's difficult to enter. Now, thanks to Lima 2019, in addition to this range (at the Chorrillos Military School), we’ll have Las Palmas Air Base Shooting Range.
Nicolas is not a typical case: he practices shooting, both in skeet and trap categories. “It’s not common that a shotgun shooter practices both categories, but I like them. At the Lima World Championships, I ranked second in the skeet category, but first in trap although it was my first time participating in that category. But since my first time shooting was skeet, it makes me feel more comfortable.”
SHOOTING AT LIMA 2019
Shooting at the Lima 2019 Pan American Games includes 12 single events, equally divided in six women’s and six men's events, as well as three mixed double events. There will be precision events (pistol and rifle), as well as shotgun events (skeet and trap).
Events will be held from July 27 to August 3 at the new Las Palmas Air Base Shooting Range in the district of Santiago de Surco. Shooting is one of the 21 qualifying disciplines for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
