Team USA Wins Most Olympic Quotas At Championship Of The Americas

The United States won eight Olympic quota slots, the most of any nation in competition at the recently-concluded Championship of the Americas (CAT) in Guadalajara, Mexico.

The match is conducted every four years with shooting teams from North and South America vying for both Olympic and Pan American Games quota slots.

U.S. shooters won 25 gold medals and 39 total medals in Guadalajara. Here's a list of the eight gold-medal winning U.S. shooters that received Olympic quotas:

• Dempster Christenson, Men's Air Rifle
• George Norton, Men's 3-Position Rifle
• James Hall, Men's Air Pistol
• Frank Thompson, Men's Skeet
• Mindy Miles, Women's Air Rifle
• Sarah Beard, Women's 3-Position Rifle
• Alexis Lagan, Women's Sport Pistol
• Kayle Browning, Women's Trap

USA Shooting has now earned 12 Olympic quotas in total, as they prepare for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. In addition to the eight quotas won in Mexico, this past September the team earned quotas at the ISSF World Championship in Changwon, South Korea. 

There will be trials next year conducted by USA Shooting that will determine which athletes who won slots in Mexico will be on the Olympic team headed to Japan in 2020.

Additional Olympic quota slots will be awarded in 2019 at the various ISSF World Cups held throughout the year, and also the Pan American Games, which will be the final opportunity for the team to pick up more before the Olympics. Team USA has already earned the maximum number of quotas available in three sports: Men's Skeet, Women's Skeet and Men's 3-Position Rifle.

Lead photo courtesy USA Shooting