COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (June 9, 2018)
Three World Cups, three gold medals.
Two-time Olympic champion Vincent Hancock (Eatonton, Georgia) won gold once again today in Men’s Skeet at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup in Siggiwei, Malta.
That makes three gold medals in as many World Cups this year, with his other wins coming in the stages in Acapulco, Mexico and Changwon, South Korea. Overall, Hancock has won ten World Cup gold medals in his career.
“This was definitely one of hardest competitions to shoot in,” Hancock told the ISSF. “We had a lot of weather changes, sunlight was perfect, Malta is a beautiful country, but the wind was definitely a factor in the last few days. Today it kind of settled down a little bit, the targets were more consistent and we saw a lot of high scores today.”
Hancock finished second in Qualification with a score of 123. The late start of today’s Final, the setting sun and blustery conditions continued to challenge the athletes, including Hancock, who led through much of the Final. After missing targets 39 and 40 on station 5, however, Hancock briefly slipped into second place behind the eventual silver medalist, Azmy Mehelba of Egypt. Hancock then went on to finish the 60-target Final with 20-straight and finished with 56 hits overall. Gabriele Rossetti of Italy, the current Olympic and World Champion, won the bronze medal.
Hancock’s U.S. teammate Amber English (Colorado Springs, Colorado) also had to battle the windy conditions in Malta en route to her silver-medal win in the Women’s Skeet competition yesterday. Read more about English’s medal-win here.
Hancock’s 2012 and 2016 Olympic teammate Frank Thompson (Alliance, Nebraska) finished just one target out of a potential Finals berth with 120 hits for eighth place. Phillip Jungman (U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit/Caldwell, Texas) finished in 24th place with 116 hits.
Competition continues at the ISSF World Cup in Malta tomorrow with pre-event training for the Trap competition, with the women kicking things off on Monday. More than 400 athletes from 61 countries are competing at this event. View LIVE scores and the schedule from the ISSF World Cup in Malta: https://www.issf-sports.org/competition ... hipid=2394.
*Photo and editorial assistance courtesy of ISSF.