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Hancock Captures Gold in Men's Skeet Shooting
Vincent Hancock, a 19-year-old from Georgia, held off Norway's Tore Brovold in a shoot-off tiebreaker to win the gold medal.
(By Mike Hewitt -- Getty Images)
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"He was always a good shot, from the time he started out," Craig Hancock said. "But he really came alive when he was around 14 years old."
That's also around the time Vincent came into possession of the Beretta, made by an Italian manufacturer whose history dates back nearly 500 years and one of a handful of gun-makers that dominate the competitive shooting market. By 16, Hancock was winning the international skeet world championship in South Korea, becoming the youngest world champ in history. Ever since he found out you can go to the Olympics in shooting, winning a gold medal has been his chief goal.
To maintain his shooting eye, Hancock plows through six or seven boxes of ammunition, with 25 shells in each, per day at Fort Benning, Ga., where he is a private first class in the elite U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit. The rest of his time is spent "training the trainers" -- sergeants and noncommissioned officers who absorb the expert marksmen's lessons and in turn teach soldiers how to shoot to kill.
Pfc. Hancock's lesson No. 1: Lock in your eyes on the front edge of the target and don't take your eyes off it until you see it explode.
His gun doesn't have a nickname, and he doesn't sleep with it or talk to it. It's not a pet, a friend or an extension of his body. "It's a tool," he said flatly, "something that allows me to do my job." He also doesn't mind at all that the underbelly of its stock is presently covered in stickers -- full of numbers and official seals that signify it is permitted to be in China, in the Olympics.
As he was led around from one room to the next after the medal ceremony Saturday, Hancock seemed not the least bit concerned that he was at this point separated from his gun, for going on an hour.
"I've got folks taking care of it," he said. "It's in good hands."
