It was exciting today: in the absence of live images from Châteauroux, anyone who wanted to follow the progress of the second day of competition in the men's skeet shooting had to rely on the results list on the official Olympic website, which was updated in real time. Depending on the success of the last shots, a black box appeared for a hit or a white box for a miss. Sven Korte, the only German participant, had started yesterday with 25, 23 and 25 and added a 25, a 24 and finally another full 25 round on today's second day. Still not enough thrills: with his 122 out of a possible 125 hits, he was theoretically in the final, but tied with five other top shooters, so the last two places in the final had to be fought over, which of course thrilled the audience because they were treated to more action.
Unfortunately, Sven Korte then missed one of the first two jump-off targets and slipped to an unfortunate 8th place. Italy's Gabriele Rosetti also dropped to 7th place and out of the final places after hitting 122 targets and three jump-off targets. His compatriot Tammaro Cassandro, on the other hand, was level on 124 hits with the leading Conner Prince (USA) and Yuan Meng Lee from Taiwan, all three of whom were certain to be in the final round for the medals. The order of the top three also had to be decided, and not too closely: Conner Prince could only be sure of starting the final as the qualification winner (with a set Olympic record) after 12 targets against Cassandro (11) and Lee (7). Skeet legend Vincent Hancock (USA), with 123 out of 125 hits and 4th place after the preliminary round, had kept himself out of all of the second rounds and was able to save shotgun shells, so to speak.
And then the final, High Noon in Châteauroux, but not until 3:30 p.m. The shotgun skills of all six finalists are worth seeing, but one stands out: Vincent Hancock completes a perfect series of 25, while the others miss one or more targets. 60 shots in total have to be fired in the final, a huge nervous and, given the August temperatures, physical effort.
The two US shooters Prince and Hancock, pupil and teacher, so to speak, leave nothing to be desired and are still level after 56 targets. Taiwanese shooter Lee has also been eliminated in the meantime, but will take home the bronze medal. Back and forth, the two US shotgun stars burst the colourful flash pigeons. Then Conner Prince misses a target, the 57th of 60, and Hancock mercilessly exploits this with four hits in succession to take his fourth Olympic gold ahead of Prince and Yuan Meng Lee.
2024 Olympic Games: the men's skeet medallists
| Placement: | Medal: | Name: | Nation: |
| Gold | 🥇 | Vincent Hancock | USA |
| silver | 🥈 | Conner Prince | USA |
| Bronze | 🥉 | Yuan Meng Lee | Taiwan |
The women also unpacked their skeet shotguns today (after a day of training yesterday) and started with the first three 25s. Germany's Nele Wissmer got off to the better start of the two German ladies and only missed a single target (25/24/25), while Nadine Messerschmidt managed three rather mixed series (23/24/22), which left her in 20th place, far from a possible place in the final. After day 1, Nele Wissmer is tied with Amber Rutter from Great Britain and Austen Smith from the USA at the top of the women's field with 74 out of 75 targets. Day 2 starts again tomorrow, Sunday, at 9:30 a.m. The final will start at 3:30 p.m.
Here is the result list of the women's skeet after day 1 to save, because the results of the second day will also be shown here tomorrow.
2024 Olympic Games: Olympic skeet champion Vincent Hancock and his Beretta DT11 Black shotgun
2024 Olympic Games: 25m pistol final with exciting play-off decisions
The second Saturday at the Olympics, in Paris as in Châteauroux, and once again the spectators have to get used to a new procedure in a final: In the women's 25m pistol, the five-shot series in the final are only evaluated as hits or misses – the electronics, which could certainly evaluate to the nearest hundredth, simply evaluate all shots above a 10.2 as hits, all others as misses. The results can then be recorded and understood more clearly (a similar procedure is used in the men's Olympic rapid fire pistol, where a hit must be at least a 10.5).
The final ultimately brought a thrilling three-way battle for the medals after Manu Bhaker from India, who had already won bronze twice, was eliminated in fourth place after a play-off. France's Camille Jedrzejewski had a good chance of winning the first gold medal for the organising country, but she was unable to beat Korea's Jiin Yang in another, final play-off when the scores were tied and was awarded silver. Former world record holder Veronika Mahor from Hungary took the bronze medal. The eight finalists were only united in their choice of sporting guns: like almost the entire world elite, they all shot with Pardini pistols in .22 LR calibre from Italy.
2024 Olympic Games: the medallists in the women's 25m pistol final
| Placement: | Medal: | Name: | Nation: |
| Gold | 🥇 | Jiin Yang | Korea |
| Silver | 🥈 | Camille Jedrzejewski | France |
| Bronze | 🥉 | Veronika Major | Hungary |
Here you can find the complete list of results for the women's 25m pistol final.
2024 Olympic Games: some snapshots from the shooting events in Châteauroux and Paris
Everything you need to know about shooting at the 2024 Olympics...
...can be found in our overview article of all episodes of "Road to Paris" at all4shooters.com.
The reports at all4shooters.com from the last few days (also in English and Italian):
Olympic Games 2024, Day 3: 10m air rifle, mixed team 10m air pistol and men's trap finals.
Olympic Games 2024, Day 5: 50m rifle 3 positions men's qualification and women's trap final.
Olympic Games 2024, Day 7: women's 50m rifle 3 position final and Day 1 of men's skeet.
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