During the final, Hancock missed his 20th
shot and finished regulation tied at 145 with Brovold, who
shot a perfect round to force the shoot-off.
“It made me more determined,” Hancock said of missing the
low target flying out of the sixth station. “Sometimes I
need something to boost my determination to get to that next
level, and that's what happened. I would have liked to have
shot 25 and won the gold outright, but I couldn't have asked
for a better shoot-off.”
Brovold drew from a hat to determine who would shoot first
in the extra session and aligned the stars for Hancock.
“I actually like going last,” said Hancock, who got his
wish. “I was hoping that he was going to draw first in the
shoot-off. I like shooting second just so I can have the
pressure on myself and not have to put the pressure on
anybody else. I like to deal with the pressure, and this
time it paid off.”
Both of the co-world record-holders hit their first two
targets in the extra session, but Brovold missed one of his
next pair.
Hancock then stepped up and knocked
down two targets to clinch the gold with a final score of
145 (+4). Brovold finished at 145 (+3) to win the silver
medal.
“I was hoping that he wouldn't miss, because Tore and I are
really good friends, but when it comes down to it, I'm glad
I got the gold medal,” Hancock said. “I wasn't expecting him
to miss that soon. It just panned out for me. I saw the
targets really well those two pairs, and I crushed them.”
Hancock said he couldn't have asked “to shoot against a
better shooter.”
“He's right there among the best in the world. It was just
which one of us had the better day today, and it turned out
to be me,” Hancock said.
Likewise, Brovold tipped his cap to Hancock.
“It was a very close final,” Brovold said. “I knew that if I
was going to have a chance for the gold, I needed to hit 25,
maybe 26. Vincent is a great shooter and a great friend, but
I don't see the silver as a failure. I won the silver.”
France's Anthony Terras 144 (+3) prevailed in a shoot-off
against Cyprus' Antonis Nikolaidis 144 (+2) to win the
bronze.
Hancock stayed poised on the mission throughout the two-day
event.
“I was trying to keep everything out of my mind, actually,”
he said. “I was just trying to keep it focused on the gold
medal and seeing myself up on the podium in the first place.
Just visualizing perfection – and I almost had it. I missed
the low six again, but it doesn't matter, I still won.
“I could feel the nervousness building up inside of me, so I
hoped it wasn't taking too much longer,” added Hancock, who
couldn't wait to celebrate with his wife, mother and father,
who all made the trip to China. “I'm obviously a very
nervous person. I can't sit still very often. I pace around
when I'm shooting. That helps me calm down. I try to take
the anxiousness and nervousness and turn it around into
energy that I can focus on my shooting.”
In skeet, shooters move through a semicircular range
featuring eight shooting stations. At each station, targets
are thrown at least 65 meters from the high (10 feet) or low
(3 feet) house on either side of the range at 55 miles per
hour. Competitors hold their 12-gauge shotguns at hip level
until the target appears and can fire only one shot per
target.
“My game plan was just to break every target,” he said. “I
can't ask for anything more than perfection. I try to be a
perfectionist as much as possible, because my motto is, ‘If
you're perfect, nobody can beat you,' so perfection rules.
“It's swirling around in my head right now still," he
continued. "It won't sink in for a couple of days probably,
but once it does, it's going to be.”
Hancock was born in Port Charlotte, Fla., and began shooting
at age 8. Before his 11th birthday, he was shooting
competitively. At age 16, he began rewriting the skeet
record books.
Before graduating in 2006 from Gatewood High School in
Georgia, Hancock joined the Army and completed basic
training at Fort Sill, Okla. Later that year, he was named
International Sports Federation Shooter of the Year and
Shooter of the Year by USA Shooting, the sport's governing
body in the United States.
Hancock, who was assigned to the USAMU in November of 2007,
established the skeet world record with a perfect score of
150 at a World Cup event in Lonato, Italy, on June 14, 2007.
He also won the bronze medal at the 2007 world
championships, and was named Shotgun Shooter of the Year by
USA Shooting.
“This is a dream come true,” Hancock said. “All those things
were just stepping stones to this point right now.”
Brovold equaled Hancock's world record last month at a World
Cup event in Nicosia, Cyprus. Hancock saluted the USAMU for
preparing him to compete with the world's best skeet
shooters. |
