CHANGWON, South Korea (September 14, 2018)
Two-time Olympic gold medalist Vincent Hancock picked up his fourth World Championship title today in Men’s Skeet to close the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship at the Changwon International Shooting Range.
Along with the gold, Hancock (Eatonton, Georgia) also secured an Olympic quota for the United States with a flourish – dropping just one target throughout the entire match, early in today’s Final. A quota is essentially a country’s ticket to participate in a specific event in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan. In Shooting competition at the Olympic Games, a country can earn up to two quotas in each event – but that doesn’t guarantee a specific athlete to compete in the Games, just that his/her country has a spot to do so.
“I kind of treated all of the World Cups before this as a stepping stone to get here, and this is just another stepping stone to get to the Olympics,” said Hancock, who won gold at all of the World Cups in which he competed this year: Acapulco, Mexico, Changwon and Siggiewi, Malta. He sat out the World Cup in Tucson, Arizona to compete in the Summer Selection Match and prepare for the World Championship. “The whole goal was to make sure I got a quota first and foremost, but I told myself if I could hit every target, I’ll be able to get the quota and win a gold medal. I was just trying to focus on doing the best I could and let God take care of the rest.”
Hancock started the two days of competition hitting a perfect 125/125 in dark, rainy conditions to equal the Qualification World Record. Once in the Final, he only dropped the
