Two-time Olympic Champion Vincent Hancock of the United States of America won his fourth World Championship gold medal in Changwon (KOR).
The Skeet Men American ace opened his day by signing a perfect qualification round, where he crushed 125 targets out of 125 and equaled the Qualification World Record for the second time in his career.
In the subsequent final match, the 29-year-old born in Port Charlotte, Florida, only missed one of his 60 targets — the 8th one — then hitting 52 consecutive clays, and progressively distancing himself from his rivals.
“This was an amazing match, I had a really good 125 and I was able to accomplish my goal which was to come out here and do the best I could,” said the American shooter. “I’m very happy of shooting a 59 and being able to win another gold, it’s one more step. Hopefully I could get to the Olympics and shoot both a 125 and a 60.”
“Having won the quota now does change the plans for next year,” he added. “I had a go of being able to take some time off next year to try to set myself up and to be able to peak again in 2020.”
“Taking time off after 2016 was a good experience, and it led to a very successful 2017 and obviously a very good 2018. So I’ll try to emulate that, take some time off, spend some time with the family, be happy and love what I do,” concluded Hancock.
For the third time this season, Hancock finished the match with 59 hits out of 60, once again equaling the World Record set at last year’s ISSF World Cup Final by Italy’s Riccardo Filippelli and Great Britain Ben Llewellin.
Both Filippelli and Llewellin also competed in the final: the Italian 38-year-old took bronze with 46 hits out of 50, while Llewellin was the first shooter eliminated from the match, taking 6th place with 17 hits out of 20. The silver medal was awarded to Norway’s 39-year-old Erik Watndal, placing 2nd with 55 hits and winning his first World Championship medal.
Hancock, Watndal and Filippelli all won an Olympic quota place for Tokyo 2020, while the fourth one was taken by France’s 45-year-old Emmanuel Petit, who placed 4th with 37 hits out of 40. Czech Republic’s 27-year-old Jakub Tomacek, instead, concluded in 5th position with 27 hits out of 30.
France climbed atop the team podium with 365 total hits, while Italy bagged the silver medal with 363. The bronze medal was awarded to the Russian Federation with 361 crushed clays.
The 52nd ISSF World Championship in all events concluded today at the Changwon International Shooting Range in Changwon (KOR): 1806 athletes competed in 59 shooting sport events and four disciplines, representing 90 nations and piling up 3457 starts.
Footage of the Olympic events have been distributed worldwide via EBU and broadcasted live on the ISSF website, on the Federation’s Livestream channel and on its official Facebook page.
Results, news and updates are available on www.issf-sports.org and on all ISSF social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Weibo and Youku.