USA Shooting junior athletes brought home a grand total of 13 medals from the 2023 International Shooting Sports Federation Junior World Championship in Changwon, Korea, July 14-25.
Shotgun athletes showed their strength by earning nine of those medals. Benjamin Keller, of Johnstown, Colorado, was crowned Junior Men’s Skeet World Champion, making him the first ever person in ISSF history to win back-to-back junior world champion titles, after winning the gold medal in 2022.
“It’s an honor to have earned the opportunity to compete in the Junior World Championships again,” Keller, the 2023 USA Shooting Junior National Men’s Skeet Champion said. “These are the best junior skeet shooters in the world, and it feels amazing to have defended my title.”
Keller went on to help his teammates win silver in the Men’s Skeet Team Event. Keller, Joshua Corbin,from Reedsburg, Wisconsin, and Jordan Sapp, of Gilbert, Arizona, earned second after defeating Cyprus in the finals.
Keller earned a third medal in Mixed Skeet Team with Jessi Griffin, of Jasper, Georgia. The duo took home a bronze medal in the event.
“Jessi and I shot good qualification scores and after a long shoot-off we entered the bronze medal match and had a solid performance to win the bronze,” Keller said.
Griffin added a second medal to her collection when she won bronze alongside Madeline Corbin, of Reedsburg, Wisconsin, and Alishia “Fayth” Layne, of Columbia, Tennessee, in Women’s Skeet Team.
Layne also took home two medals, her second being a bronze in Women’s Skeet.
Junior trap athletes also had a strong showing. Ryann Phillips, of Gail, Texas, is the Junior Women’s Trap Champion. She earned her title after defeating Giorgia Lenticchia of Italy in the gold medal match. This is Phillips’ second international gold medal of 2023. She won first place at the 2023 ISSF Suhl Junior World Cup in Women’s Trap. In addition, Carey Garrison, of Crossville, Tennessee, placed third overall and joined Phillips on the podium.
Garrison and Phillips teamed up with Kaleigh Castillo, of Livermore, California, to earn gold in the Women’s Team Trap event. The American duo beat the Italian team in the gold medal match.
Garrison, the 2023 ISSF Suhl Junior World Cup silver medalist, also shot with William Browning, from Doylestown, Ohio, in the Mixed Team Trap event. The duo earned gold after shooting the combined top score from individual qualification rounds.
The junior rifle athletes took home a total of three medals and had multiple finalists. Braden Peiser, of San Angelo, Texas, earned bronze in Men’s 50m Prone Rifle after shooting the third overall top score.
“Winning bronze was a great feeling,” Peiser said. “My first international match for prone was five years ago here, so it was nice to see my first individual medal to come from the same range.”
Peiser joined Gavin Barnick, of Mora, Minnesota, and Tyler Wee, of Wake Forest, North Carolina, in the Men’s 50m Prone Rifle team event where the trio earned bronze.
Katie Zaun, from Buffalo, North Dakota, along with Alivia Perkins, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Elizabeth Probst, of Brady, Texas, shot together on the Women’s 50m Rifle 3-Position team where they earned a bronze medal.
Probst, the 2023 Junior Olympic Women’s Smallbore National Champion, shot the top qualifying score to make the finals for individual Women’s 50m Rifle 3-Position where she finished seventh overall.
Pistol shooter Ada Korkhin, of Brookline, Massachusetts, earned her first individual international medal when she took home bronze in Women’s 25m Pistol. In the final, she beat Payal Kuldeep of India who finished in fourth place.
“A lot of hard work and dedication went into the preparation for this competition, not only on my part, but of course from my coach, Libby [Elizabeth Callahan], my parents and the staff at USA Shooting who got me there,” Korkhin said. “During the finals, I don’t think the pressure really hit me until the end, so I was able to have a lot of fun. It felt incredibly fulfilling.”
Korkhin also competed in Women’s 10m Air Pistol where she finished seventh overall.
See below for a list of all the medals captured by USA Shooting junior athletes in Korea.
SHOTGUN
- Gold: Men’s Skeet, Benjamin Keller
- Gold: Women’s Trap, Ryann Phillips
- Gold: Mixed Trap Team, William Browning and Carey Garrison
- Gold: Women’s Trap Team, Kaleigh Castillo, Ryann Phillips and Carey Garrison
- Silver: Men’s Skeet Team, Joshua Corbin, Benjamin Keller and Jordan Sapp
- Bronze: Women’s Skeet Team, Jessi Griffin, Madeline Corbin and Fayth Layne
- Bronze: Women’s Skeet, Alishia “Fayth” Layne
- Bronze: Mixed Skeet Team, Benjamin Keller and Jessi Griffin
- Bronze: Women’s Trap, Carey Garrison
RIFLE
- Bronze: Women’s 50m Rifle 3-Position Team, Katie Zaun, Alivia Perkins and Elizabeth Probst
- Bronze: 50m Prone Rifle, Braden Peiser
- Bronze: Men's 50m Prone Rifle Team, Gavin Barnick, Tyler Wee and Braden Peiser
PISTOL
- Bronze: Women’s 25m Pistol, Ada Korkhin
Up next for USA Shooting athletes is the ISSF World Championship (open age category) in Baku, Azerbaijan, August 14 to September 1. This competition takes place with less than a year to go until the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Athletes will be striving for gold and a chance at a U.S. Olympic quota.
To date, USA Shooting athletes have secured 15 quotas for the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics. When an athlete earns a quota for the United States a specific event, the U.S. becomes eligible to have an athlete compete in that event during the Olympic Games. Athletes are eligible to earn one event quota every four-year Olympic cycle.
Learn more about USA Shooting at usashooting.org.
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