USA Shooting athlete Sam Simonton capped off the 2024 competition season the same way she started it—standing center podium with a women’s skeet gold medal around her neck. She picked up her second gold medal of the year in October at the 2024 International Shooting Sport Federation’s World Cup Final in New Delhi, India, following up her women’s skeet gold medal won in January at the ISSF World Cup in Cairo, Egypt.
Simonton’s big win marked the only medal garnered by Team USA at the 2024 ISSF World Cup Final, which took place from October 13-18.
As a competition, the ISSF World Cup Final stands apart on the international circuit due to the fact that only top-10-ranked athletes are eligible to receive invitations. Besides skeet and trap, the ISSF World Cup Final also features air rifle, smallbore rifle, air pistol and rapid-fire pistol events for men, women and mixed teams.
Simonton, who will turn 25 in December, is one of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit’s elite shotgunners. The Gainesville, Georgia, native began her international skeet career in 2015 under the tutelage of Craig Hancock (father of four-time Olympic gold medalist Vincent Hancock). Since that time, Simonton has picked up 10 medals in international competition, including three golds if you count this year’s wins on the ISSF circuit.
“I’m happy to have won. My goal was to win, but deeper into that, I wanted to shoot a good final,” Simonton said to USA Shooting’s Brittany Nelson regarding her gold medal performance at the 2024 ISSF World Cup Final. “It will probably take me some time to give it and myself some more credit. I proved a lot to myself this competition, specifically in the final.”
WOMEN’S SKEET GOLD
Women’s skeet event qualification at the ISSF World Cup Final consists of five rounds, each with 25 targets for a total possible score of 125. Simonton’s only miss was in round three, firing the other four rounds without a miss. Her score of 124 placed her in a tie with Italian competitor Diana Bacosi, with the two shooters forced to battle for the top spot. Although she had made the cut, Simonton lost the shoot-off against Bacosi by one target, and advanced to the final ranked second out of the six women’s skeet shooters that qualified.
Joining Simonton in the women’s skeet final was Dania Vizzi, who exited qualification in third place with a score of 122. Unlike Simonton, who was selected as a U.S. team alternate, Vizzi competed earlier this year in the women’s skeet and mixed team skeet events at the Paris 2024 Olympics, although she did not medal.
Simonton crushed her first target to kick off the women’s skeet final, but was two for four after the first station, which she later described as not an “ideal” way to begin. She was one of only two shooters that didn’t have a perfect start and, two birds down, Simonton moved to station two ranked dead last.
Through 24 targets, Simonton found herself at the top of the leaderboard with 21 hits. Bacosi was behind her with 19. While Simonton was perfect for her next 25 shots, she traded the top spot with Bacosi, who had a streak of her own going into the final 10 targets. Simonton missed her 50th target, which caused concern, but she hit the rest of her targets in stride for a 56 of 60 final score to win the gold medal. Bacosi, who missed her 57th target, ended the final with a 54 of 60 score and the runner-up position.
As for Vizzi, she performed admirably, even holding the lead at several points during the women’s skeet final, but was the third shooter eliminated, walking away from the match in fourth place with a score of 32.
Simonton told USA Shooting’s Brittany Nelson that she credits a positive mindset, along with training with her Army teammates, for maintaining her composure in the final.
“I’ve always recognized that finals have historically been my weakest,” she said. “There is always room for improvement.”
Simonton and Vizzi’s next visit to the skeet field in competition will be the 2025 USA Shooting shotgun selection match next spring.
U.S. JUNIOR TEAM SHINES IN PERU
Prior to the 2024 International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup Final, the younger USA Shooting athletes took center stage at the International Shooting Sport Federation Junior World Championships in Lima, Peru, from September 26 to October 7. Team USA had a stellar showing at the match with a total haul of 10 medals—two gold, four silver and four bronze.
More than 30 U.S. rifle, pistol and shotgun shooters headed to Peru for the competition. The medal breakdown for USA Shooting was split evenly between individual and team events. Five team medals were earned in the men’s skeet team (gold), women’s skeet team (bronze), mixed team skeet (bronze), men’s 10m air rifle team (silver) and women’s 10m air rifle team (silver) events.
On the individual side, Braden Peiser won gold in the men’s 50m rifle event, as well as a bronze medal in the men’s 10m air rifle events. Benjamin Keller and Gracie Hensley both picked up silver medals in the men’s and women’s individual skeet events. Finally, Texas Christian University rifle team standout Katie Zaun was the bronze medalist in the women’s 10m air rifle event.
For Peiser, who is a member of the Kentucky Wildcats collegiate rifle team when he’s competing stateside, picking up the gold medal was “surreal.” He won the men’s 50m rifle gold medal after a hard-fought final, defeating Swedish competitor Victor Lindgren by a .1-point margin, 460.3 to 460.2. With his final shot, Peiser fired a 10.7 to clinch the gold over Lindgren’s 10.4.
“I have been in a lot of finals and quite a few international finals,” Peiser said to USA Shooting’s Brittany Nelson in a post-match interview. “I was enjoying this final and the chase. It was fun sitting in second or third and knowing I had some work to do.”
U.S. athletes Jordan Sapp, Benjamin Keller and Joshua Corbin were on the gold-medal winning men’s skeet team. The trio defeated the Italian team by eight points in the final, 349 to 341. Be on the lookout for all three shooters, along with the rest of the talented USA Shooting squad, going into the 2025 competition season.
ISSF JUNIOR WORLDS, BY THE NUMBERS
The United States was one of 49 nations that sent a total of 553 athletes to the 2024 International Shooting Sport Federation Junior World Championships. Team USA walked away from the competition with 10 medals. Below is a breakdown.
You can see the full results for the 2024 ISSF Junior World Championships, as well as the 2024 ISSF World Cup Final, at the International Shooting Sport Federation website: issf-sports.org.
Learn more about the talented shotgun athletes that compete for USA Shooting at usashooting.org.
