USA Shooting athletes earned a total of six medals at the International Shooting Sports Federation World Cup for Shotgun, held in Doha, Qatar, from March 4-13.
Alicia Gough (Burlington, Wisconsin), brought home her first-ever World Cup medal after placing third overall in the Women’s Trap event. Gough is a soldier with the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit and a new mom. She gave birth to her first child in January 2023 and then proceed to make the national shotgun team at the February 2023 USA Shooting selection match.
Gough earned a second medal, this time gold, in the Mixed Trap Team event with Will Hinton (Dacula, Georgia), another U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit soldier.
In the individual skeet events, the team took home three medals. Six-time Olympic medalist and NRA Director Kimberly Rhode (El Monte, California) won the gold medal in the Women’s Skeet event after a shoot-off against Samantha Simonton (Gainesville, Georgia), who walked away with the silver medal.
As for the Men’s Skeet event, Vincent Hancock (Easton, Georgia) fired a perfect qualification score to land him in the final, where he ultimately earned a silver medal. His final score was one point behind the gold medalist, Gabriele Rossetti of Italy, 39-38.
Benjamin Keller (Johnstown, Colorado) shot a 124 out of 125 to place seventh overall in Men’s Skeet.
Hancock and Rhode went on to win gold in the Mixed Skeet Team event after beating France in the gold medal match. Rhode now has a total of 37 ISSF World Cup medals, while Hancock upped his total to 25.
Christian Elliott (Phenix City, Alabama) and Dania Vizzi (Odessa, Florida) also competed in the Mixed Skeet Team event, finishing the event in sixth place.
In trap competition, Derek Haldeman (Sunbury, Ohio) and in skeet, Benjamin Keller (Johnstown, Colorado) both shot 124 out of 125 in RPO (ranking points only) positions.
Alicia Gough, Will Hinton, Samantha Simonton, Christian Elliott and Derek Haldeman are all soldiers serving on the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit.
See the full match results at the ISSF website.
Learn more about USA Shooting at usashooting.org.
