You Will Shoot Your Eye Out

It’s a wrap for the shooting events at the 2024 Paris Olympics and the world saw phenomenal shooting with five new Olympic records set in 14 different medal events and 42 medals up for grabs. China showed they are currently the ones to beat winning the most shooting medals in Paris with 10 including five gold, two silver and three bronze.

The USA (one gold, three silver, one bronze) and Korea (two gold, three silver) were next with five medals each and Italy followed suit with four medals (one gold, two silver, one bronze). India, Switzerland and Guatemala each joined the countries earning more than one medal with two apiece.

The USA saw veteran skeet shooter, Vincent Hancock, become one of only six competitors in Olympic history to win four gold medals in the same event. He joins Al Oerter (USA, discus), Paul Elvstrom (Denmark, sailing one-person class), Carl Lewis (USA, long jump), Michael Phelps (USA, 200m individual medley), and Mijain Lopez (Cuba, Greco-Roman heavyweight) to accomplish the feat and is the first Olympic shooter to do so. He won gold medals in 2008 in Beijing, in 2012 in London, in 2020 in Tokyo and now in 2024 in Paris. He also won a silver medal for his participation and finish in the Skeet Mixed Team competition.

Here are more USA Shooting highlights from Paris:

• Sagen Maddalena, earned the first medal for USA in the 2024 Olympics when she won a silver medal in the Women’s 50m Smallbore Rifle. Maddalena, from Groveland, California, is a sergeant in the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit and a University of Alaska Fairbanks alumna. She previously competed in Tokyo 2020, placing fifth.

• Conner Prince from Burleson, Texas, made his Olympic debut in Paris 2024 where he won silver in Men’s Skeet finishing right behind Hancock. Besides being his first Olympic medal in his first Olympics, it also marked the first time the USA secured more than one medal in Men’s Skeet at an Olympic Games. Prince’s performance, which included tying the Olympic qualification record, was a significant achievement.

• Austen Smith from Keller, Texas, is a University of Texas at Arlington student and a seasoned international shooter with over 20 medals. She made her Olympic debut in Tokyo 2020, finishing 10th. She won bronze in Women’s Skeet in Paris this year for her first Olympic medal and followed it up with a silver while paired up with Hancock competing in the Skeet Mixed Team event.

Olympic shooters in 2024 also became brief internet sensations with their style and approach to their games with Korean shooter, Kim Yeji, 31, landing attention for the aura of cool she projected when competing and winning a silver in the 10m Air Pistol event. While Turkish shooter, Yusef Dikec, rolling in with regular looking glasses, a white Turkish t-shirt, no muffs, gray hair and just hanging back with one hand in his pocket and the other driving tacks from his air pistol, looked more like a guy who got disturbed from reading a book and asked if he wanted to compete in a shooting event. Dikec, 51, a former officer in the Turkish Gendarmerie, won a silver along with Sevval Ilayda Tarhan in the Mixed Team 10m Air Pistol. But not until after he had already been featured in countless memes and videos on X, Instagram and YouTube. He has competed in every Olympics since 2008.

Five Olympic shooting records were broken and two were tied during the games as well, as reported by the Associated Press:

• Chiara Leone of Switzerland scored a 464.4 in the women’s 50m Rifle 3 Position final, breaking the Olympic record of 463.9 set by fellow Swiss shooter Nina Christen at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

• Adriana Ruano of Guatemala hit 45 of 50 targets in women’s Trap to break the Olympic record of 43 set by Rehak Stefecekova of Slovakia at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

• Nathan Hales of Britain scored a 48 in men’s Trap, breaking the Olympic record of 43 set by Jiri Liptak and David Kosteleck at the Tokyo Games in 2021, during the gold medal round.

• Sheng Lihao of China scored 252 in men’s 10m Air Rifle, breaking the Olympic record of 251.6 set by William Shaner of the United States at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

• Ban Hyojin of South Korea and Huang Yuting of China each scored a 251.8 in women’s Team 10m Air Rifle to tie the Olympic record set by China’s Yang Qian at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

• Yusef Dikec and Ilayda Tarhan of Turkey scored a 582 in Mixed Team 10m Air Pistol to tie the Olympic record set by India’s Manu Bhaker and Chaudhary Saurabh at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

• Oh Ye Jin of South Korea scored a 243.2 in women’s 10m Air Pistol, breaking the Olympic record of 240.3 set by Vitalina Batsarashkina of the Russian Olympic Committee at the Tokyo Games in 2021. Roommate Kim Yeji also surpassed the previous mark with her score of 241.3 and won the silver medal in that event.

Following is a complete rundown of the 2024 Paris Olympic shooting events and medal winners:

10m Air Rifle Mixed Team

Gold:               China

Silver:              Korea

Bronze:            Kazakhstan

10m Air Pistol Men 

Gold:               China – Xie Yu

Silver:              Italy – Federico Nilo Maldini

Bronze:            Italy – Paolo Monna

10m Air Pistol Women 

Gold:               Korea – Oh Ye Jin

Silver:              Korea – Kim Yeji

Bronze:            India – Manu Bhaker

10m Air Rifle Women 

Gold:               Korea – Ban Hyojin

Silver:              China – Huang Yuting

Bronze:            Switzerland – Audrey Gogniat

10m Air Rifle Men 

Gold:               China – Sheng Lihao

Silver:              Sweden – Victor Lindgren

Bronze:            Croatia – Miran Maricic

Trap Men

Gold:               Great Britain – Nathan Hales

Silver:              China – Qi Ying

Bronze:            Guatemala – Jean Pierre Brol Cardenas

Trap Women

Gold:               Guatemala – Adriana Ruano Oliva

Silver:              Italy – Silvana Maria Stanco

Bronze:            Australia – Penny Smith

50m Rifle 3 Position Men

Gold:               China – Liu Yukun

Silver:              Ukraine – Serhiy Kulish

Bronze:            India – Swapnil Kusale

50m Rifle 3 Position Women

Gold:               Switzerland – Chiara Leone

Silver:              USA – Sagen Maddalena (first medal for U.S. Shooting at the Olympics)

Bronze:            China – Zhang Qiongyue

25m Pistol Women

Gold:               Korea – Yang Jiin

Silver:              France – Camille Jedrzejewski

Bronze:            Hungary – Veronika Major

Skeet Men

Gold:               USA – Vincent Hancock (first shooting gold medal and record set)

Silver:              USA – Connor Prince (Prince’s first medal)

Bronze:            Taipei – Lee Meng Yuan

Skeet Women

Gold:               Chile – Francisca Crovetto Chadid

Silver:              Great Britain – Amber Jo Rutter

Bronze:            USA – Austen Smith

25M Rapid Fire Pistol Men

Gold:               China – Li Yuehong

Silver:              Korea – Cho Yeongjae

Bronze:            China – Wang Xinjie

Skeet Mixed Team

Gold:               Italy

Silver:              USA (Vincent Hancock & Austin Jewell Smith

Bronze:            China

An obvious absence among the medal winners is Russia , always a nemesis in the Olympics for the USA, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia was banned, along with Belarus, from this year’s games by the IOC for their country’s involvement in the war in Ukraine. Their athletes can still technically compete as Individual Neutral Athletes, but not under their nation’s flags.

Correction: The winner of the Women’s Skeet medal event was incorrectly identified and should be from Chile, not China. China also won 10 medals, not 11 and only five gold, not six. Russian and Belarus was banned from competition, not their athletes. Athletes can still compete as Individual Neutral Athletes without a country as their designation. This story updated Aug. 5 at 11:17 EST.