USA Shooting National Rifle Team athlete Sagen Maddalena secured a Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games quota for Team USA, also bringing home two rifle medals after a successful performance at the 2022 International Shooting Sport Federation World Championships this past week in Cairo, Egypt.
Maddalena, a soldier in the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, earned the nation a quota on October 21 in 50m 3-Position Women’s Rifle after placing fourth overall in the event with a score of 409.9.
“I am happy to have grabbed America the first 50-meter quota of the quad,” Maddalena said, adding, “hard work is paying off.”
An alumni of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks rifle team, Maddalena on October 19 was also crowned world champion, alongside fellow U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit soldier, Ivan Roe, in the 50m Rifle Prone Mixed Team event. The American duo defeated the Ukrainian team of Daria Tykhova and Serhiy Kulish in the gold medal match, 16-8.
“Ivan and I put in the work as a team leading up to this competition,” Maddalena said. “We had complete faith in each other and had a good time while doing it.”
Maddalena, who resides in Groveland, Calif., additionally captured a silver medal on October 16 with fellow Tokyo 2020 Olympians Alison Weisz and Mary Tucker in the 10m Air Rifle Women’s Team event. The gold went to Yutin Huang, Zhilin Wang and Yu Zhang of China with a score of 16, while the U.S. shooters’ walked away from the final with a score of 12 for second place and the silver medal.
Maddalena also competed in the Women’s 50m Rifle Prone event at the 2022 ISSF World Championship, taking sixth place overall with a score of 624.7; additionally, in another team-up with Ivan Roe, this time in the 50m Rifle Mixed Team event, the duo finished 11th.
As you can probably imagine, Maddalena has been on a screaming hot streak this year. In July, she won the USA Shooting National Championship title for both Women’s 10m Air Rifle and Women’s 50m Smallbore. At the 2022 Rio De Janeiro World Cup, she earned a silver medal in Women’s Team 50m 3-Position Rifle and a bronze medal at the in Women’s 50m 3-Position Rifle.
Maddalena also brought home hardware in 2021, topping the leaderboard last year at the Wroclaw World Cup for both Women’s 50m 3-Position Rifle and Mixed Team 50m 3-Position Rifle.
The next competition for Maddalena and the rest of the qualified USA Shooting athletes is the Championships of the Americas in Lima, Peru, which will take place November 4-13.
Learn more about USA Shooting at usashooting.org.
See the full results of the 2022 ISSF World Championship in Cairo, Egypt, at issf-sports.org.
