COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (July 18, 2019)
Six medals, three titles and a U.S. sweep was quite the haul for America’s Shooting Team as they enjoyed an absolutely banner day in Skeet at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) Junior World Cup from Suhl, Germany.
USA Shooting’s campaign rallying cry through 2020 is #RaiseTheFlag and nowhere has that been more prominent since it launched April 24 than on the Suhl skeet range Thursday. The U.S. flag was raised early and often for USA’s junior shotgun program throughout the Junior World Cup, nine times in all in fact, including three of the four individual gold medals. Add to that impressiveness the six Junior World Championship medals earned in Italy recently, including two gold.
Austen Smith and Conner Prince led today’s festivities, turning Lonestar talk to Dualstar triumph as the Texas natives earned gold medals in both Women’s and Men’s Skeet. But that wasn’t all there was to talk about as Smith helped ushered in a U.S. medal sweep and a team title while Prince helped bring home a team silver medal as well.
Today began with Smith (Keller, Texas) tying the Open Women’s World Record with a qualifying score of 123/125. Equally game, like always, were her shooting mates of Sam Simonton (Gainesville, Georgia) and Katie Jacob (Rochester, Michigan), who qualified for the Final as well following scores of 114 and 119, respectively. Smith’s record score tied that of her teammate Simonton, which she set earlier this season in a World Cup event in Acapulco, Mexico.
How dominant were they in Qualification? Let’s just say these three U.S. women won the team title by a massive 20 points over their Chinese foes, and their combined score of
