After winning four Olympic gold medals, Vincent Hancock had to settle for a silver medal this time.
Italy narrowly defeated the United States 45-44 on Monday in the final of the first Olympic mixed team skeet event. This is the first time Hancock, who has been competing since 2008, has won a medal other than gold in his Olympic career.
Italy’s Gabriele Rosetti and Diana Bacosi, both gold medalists in individual skeet from 2016, needed to hit at least seven of their last eight targets to win the gold and avoid a shoot-off.
Rosetti missed one of his four targets after hitting 20 straight, but Bacosi secured the win with four hits to close out the final shooting event of the Paris Olympics.
Hancock, who is also a coach, was shooting alongside his student, Austen Smith, the bronze medalist in the women’s individual skeet. Hancock was aiming for his fifth career gold medal and his second of the 2024 Olympics.
He had already won the men’s individual skeet event, making him one of only six Olympians to win the same event four times. No shooter has won five Olympic gold medals since 1924.
The Italians led team qualification on Monday with 149 hits out of 150 shots, matching the world record, while the U.S. had 148 hits for second place. Rosetti and Hancock were the only shooters to achieve perfect scores of 75.
China’s Jiang Yiting and Lyu Jianlin won the bronze medal with a score of 44-43 against India’s Maheshwari Chauhan and Anantjeet Singh Naruka.
The mixed team skeet event replaced the mixed team trap competition from the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.
On the same day, China won its fifth shooting gold medal of the Paris Games when Li Yuehong dominated the men’s 25-meter rapid-fire pistol final.
Li finished with 32 hits, including all five targets on his last round, winning by seven shots over South Korea’s Cho Yeong-jae. Wang Xinjie of China took bronze, completing China’s sweep of the four men’s pistol and rifle events at the Games.
