Vincent Hancock joined an impressive list of people yesterday after the USA Shooting athlete won the gold medal in the Men’s Skeet event at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
The victory marked Hancock’s fourth gold in an individual event at the Olympic Games, which is an achievement that only seven other athletes have notched over their careers, including four Americans—Al Oerter (Discus), Carl Lewis (Long Jump), Michael Phelps (200m Butterfly) and Katie Ledecky (800m Freestyle), along with Paul Elvstroem of Denmark (One-person Dinghy) and Mijain Lopez of Cuba (Super-heavyweight Greco-Roman Wrestling).
Hancock earned his spot among these seven Olympic athletes after triumphing in a hard-fought final that was a thriller for the ages. After six of the eight finalists had been eliminated, it was down to Hancock and U.S. teammate Conner Prince for the Men’s Skeet gold medal. Although Hancock held the lead for most of the final, everything was now on the line. After Prince missed his 54th shot, the now four-time champion was perfect for his final four shots to secure the gold medal and make history.
Hancock missed just two of 60 targets in the Men’s Skeet final in France this year.
“This was the hardest one yet,” he said. “It seems like every time it gets harder.”
For Hancock, joining the likes of household-name American athletes like Carl Lewis and Michael Phelps is a dream come true. I had the opportunity to speak with Hancock immediately after winning the Men’s Skeet gold medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics yesterday.
“It’s pretty special for me because I love the Olympics,” Hancock said. “Carl Lewis is probably my favorite Olympic athlete—just watching what he was able to do, when he was able to do it, and what he’s been able to overcome and just being a true icon of the Olympic sports for so long is an incredible feeling. Then being able to compete alongside Michael Phelps at the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympics—seeing his progression and what he was able to accomplish. Although I know that I’ll never catch up to him in medal count by any means, the fact that I’ve been able to do what I’ve done in this sport, win four golds and just have my name in the same breath as [Lewis and Phelps]—that’s special to me.”
(Note: Hancock won his gold before Katie Ledecky had won her 800m Freestyle gold medal in Paris that evening, otherwise he probably would have mentioned her.)
On maintaining his composure during a tense competition like the Men’s Skeet final yesterday, Hancock said, “You’ve just got to take it one target at a time.” But that begs the question for mere mortals such as myself and most of you reading this article—how do you maintain your focus on shattering a clay target, again and again, until you’ve won on the ultimate stage in your sport?
“You’re trying to just run the process … what does it take to break a target? It’s just simple steps,” Hancock said. “You’re just trying to focus on one thing at a time. And that is positive affirmations. Telling yourself, ‘Okay, you step in the station, you get your natural point of alignment, you get your breakpoint, set your whole point, etc.’ For me, it’s hold the target. If I can just hold the target on each one of those, I’m not going to miss, because I’m going to make sure I have enough time to make the corrections, I have enough time to see the target clearly—all of those things. So, I’ve really tried to simplify all those processes down into a step-by-step list, since I can do that. It’s really pretty simple.”
When asked if ending up with something other than a gold medal would have been acceptable to him this year, Hancock emphasized that a podium finish in an Olympic event is an important accomplishment for any athlete.
“I know that I wanted to walk away with a medal here no matter what. But at the same time, I want a gold. I told myself repeatedly over the last couple of days that I want this,” Hancock said. “I really started wanting this just a couple months ago, but it really hit home after we had a World Cup in Italy in June. And after that, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m not ready for the Olympics. I need to work to get ready for this.’ I saw some flaws in my game, which was not acceptable to me. I had been busy coaching others and wasn’t able to do the things I needed to do because I hadn’t been paying close enough attention to myself. So, I had to reset my mindset—‘I have just over a month to get prepared for this. You’re gonna have to work your butt off to figure out how to fix yourself.’ And I knew that coming into this, it’s a crapshoot. With everything going perfectly, I’ll win gold. If it doesn’t, I can still win a medal. And that’s okay—because winning a medal at the Olympics is totally fine. Gold, silver, bronze, it doesn’t matter. You’re still an Olympic medalist and you’ll always be an Olympic medalist.”
In the Paris 2024 Olympics Men’s Skeet final, one of the other shooters that Hancock was competing against was his U.S. teammate Conner Prince, who he also coaches.
“It was good to see him shooting the way he was and knowing I was going to have to bring everything I had in order to beat him,” Hancock said about Prince in the Men’s Skeet final. “We’ve been going back and forth in practice for years now, and I was just focused on doing the best I could.”
Hancock has competed at five Olympic Games thus far in his career: Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, winning the Men’s Skeet event gold medal at four of them. He did not medal at the Rio 2016 Olympics, making him the only one among the aforementioned seven athletes to win over five Olympic Games instead of four consecutive Games.
At the Rio 2016 Games, Hancock walked away from the Men’s Skeet event in 15th place.
“Without the failure in Rio, I don’t think that I would have had the same mindset going into Tokyo. But at the same time, my mindset is always the same,” Hancock said. “Every competition I go to, I’m expecting the best for myself. And I know that if I shoot my best, then I’m going to win. I have to be, because my best is perfect. That’s what I’ve trained for. And I expect it every single time whether it’s practice or competition … [Rio] was a failure on my part because I let a lot of things get to me. There were new rules implemented that they didn’t tell us until the day before we got there. Going through equipment control, they started taping up everything on practically your entire body—taping shoes, taping glasses, taping hats, taping shirts. I just let that get to me. And, I couldn’t see my wife very much in Rio, and we weren’t able to do the things that we’d normally do like in Beijing or in London. I realized that I wasn’t having any fun at all when I was shooting that match. It’s one of the very few matches in my career where I hated being there. I didn’t want to do it because I wasn’t happy with where I was as an athlete, a husband and a father. It just wasn’t me. So, I changed that perspective to, ‘I need to have fun, I have to enjoy myself.’ Because the more you do that, the more it frees up your heart, mind, body and soul—everything—to do what you love.”
Having fun while competing is something Hancock stresses to all athletes, because if you’re not having fun, why are you doing it?
“It needs to be something that’s enjoyable,” Hancock said. “Yes, this is a job for me. But at the same time, nobody said you have to be miserable doing your job. Everybody always talks about, do what you love, and then love what you do. That’s me.”
For Hancock, competing against the best shooters in the world pushes him not only to be a better athlete, but also a better business owner, husband and father. His mindset has evolved over the years.
“When I was younger, I was more focused on just being an athlete. And that kind of dominated my whole life,” Hancock said. “As I’ve become older, I’ve learned to take that tenacity of being an athlete and compartmentalize it—put it in a box and apply it in different facets of life. When I’m at home, I can be a husband and a father to the best of my ability. And when I’m at work, I can run that and do the best that I can there. But as soon as I step on the range, I’m in full athlete mode—I want to go out and do my best because I love to win.”
Next up for Hancock at the Paris 2024 Olympics is the Mixed Team Skeet event on Monday, August 5. He will compete with another athlete he coaches, Austen Smith, who is also a U.S. skeet competitor in France this year. Additionally, Conner Prince will shoot the Mixed Team Skeet event with Dania Vizzi as his partner.
Regarding his future in Olympic competition, Hancock may only have one more Games left in him. The next Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles in 2028.
“These Games have reminded me that I’m getting old. I’ve been doing this a long time … Los Angeles is there. And then that’s it for me.” Hancock said. “I was actually intending to probably retire after this [Olympics]. But with it going to be in Los Angeles, I would like to go back and compete in an Olympics on U.S. soil, because what better place to retire than on home ground and, hopefully, defend my title again.”
