Lanny Barnes arrived in Corinth, Greece, with one world title to defend. She went home with three.
The three-time Olympic biathlete kept her Open Lady crown at the 2026 IPSC Shotgun World Shoot, which wrapped up Oct. 4, and helped Team USA to gold in the Open Lady team competition. Then she won the Open Ladies shoot-off, a head-to-head race on steel held after the main match. Barnes had never swept all three at a single World Shoot.
She was not the only U.S. woman to pull it off. Lena Miculek, shooting Modified at an IPSC World Shoot for the first time, ran the same table in that division with individual gold, team gold and the shoot-off title. Dianna Muller added silver in Open Lady Senior, and three more Americans reached individual podiums in the Lady Senior categories. Add it up and U.S. women won nine of the 19 medals that put the United States first on the championship medal table, ahead of Finland with 18 and Italy with 14.
Corinth was a crowded place to stand out. The fifth Shotgun World Shoot was the largest shotgun match in IPSC history, drawing more than 900 competitors from 50 countries for 30 stages over five days. Birdshot was the load on 26 of those stages, most of them built around IPSC metal plates and mini poppers, with a handful of poppers that set moving clays in motion. Buckshot came out for Stages 25 and 26, slugs for the paper targets on Stages 29 and 30. A few stages added wrinkles. Stage 13 had to be shot entirely from the weak shoulder, while Stage 23 began with the shotgun lying flat on a table.
Barnes came to Greece as the reigning champion, having won Open Lady at the 2023 World Shoot in Pattaya, Thailand. She repeated ahead of Maria Lina Vasilatou, who gave the home crowd a silver medal, and Finland’s Jenny Koskimäki.
Winning a world title is something you never forget, Barnes, who shoots for Team Fiocchi, said afterward, “but coming back and successfully defending that title makes this one incredibly special.”
Her team gold capped a steady climb. Barnes helped the U.S. to bronze in the Open Lady team event in 2023, five years after an American squad took silver in France. This time she was joined by Jacqueline Clary, Amerydel Reid and Allison Muggli, and the four combined for 3958.87 points, 175.81 clear of Thailand. The Philippines, competing with three shooters, took bronze.
Muller and Barnes, both Fiocchi teammates, are no strangers to sharing a podium. This summer, Muller finished second to Barnes among Open women at the Rocky Mountain 3-Gun Championship at the NRA Whittington Center in Raton, New Mexico. In Greece, shooting in Open Lady Senior, she placed second again, this time behind South Africa’s Johanna Van den Berg, with Myrna Mendoza of the Philippines third.
It was Muller’s fourth World Shoot. She won individual silver in Standard Lady in Italy in 2015 and again in France in 2018, and both times she helped the U.S. Standard Lady team to gold.
“The level of competition at a World Shoot is unlike anything else,” Muller said, “and it takes preparation, consistency and confidence in your equipment from the first stage to the last.”
Miculek, a Smith & Wesson brand ambassador, picked her own degree of difficulty, leaving Standard for Modified, the division that permits red-dot optics and muzzle devices. The new setup changed nothing about the outcome.
“After four World Shoots in Standard, I jumped into Modified for a new challenge ... and walked away with a clean sweep,” she wrote on Facebook.
She won the individual title ahead of Finland’s Anne Hautamäki and Rica Adrienne Evangelista of the Philippines, with teammate Ursula Williams fifth. Miculek, Williams, Sofia Espina and Heather Eckhardt posted 4036.60 team points, 303.06 more than the Philippines, with Poland third, Greece fourth and Great Britain fifth. The shoot-off title followed. Miculek now counts 11 world championships, five of them at the IPSC Shotgun World Shoot, and pointed out that she is still undefeated at the event.
Eckhardt, a Benelli pro staff shooter, earned her place on the team through the U.S. qualification process. “To represent my beloved country on the world stage, alongside an incredible team of women, and come home as World Champions is something I’ll always carry with me,” she said. She also said she hopes the result “inspires more women of all ages to get out there and shoot.”
Deeper in the results, the Americans kept finding podiums in the Lady Senior categories, where Thailand won three of the four titles. Rebecca Yackley (Team Winchester) took silver in Standard behind Natakorn Pramayan. In Standard Manual, the pump-action division, Cynthia Coker and Katrina Reed finished second and third to Siriwan Thongkham. Counting Muller’s silver in Open, U.S. women medaled in three of the four Lady Senior categories.
Coker and Reed also joined Tennille Chidester, fifth among Standard Manual Lady shooters, on a three-woman U.S. team that took silver behind Brazil.
For now, Miculek said, she’s taking time to rest and enjoy Greece. “This was one heck of a chapter,” she wrote. Then it’s home, where, she promised, “there are some very exciting things ahead.”
Stay tuned to Shooting Sports USA for more 2026 IPSC Shotgun World Shoot coverage, including Sgt. Jon Wiedell of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit winning the Open title.
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