CHÂTEAUROUX, France — Editor's note: The video published above is a WFAA story with Vincent Hancock before heading over to compete in the Paris Olympics.
North Texas resident Vincent Hancock entered Saturday with the chance to become only the fourth American in history to win four Olympic gold medals in the same individual event.
Only Michael Phelps, Carl Lewis, and Al Oerter had ever done it. Hancock won skeet gold at the Olympics in 2008, 2012 and 2021 and is the only skeet shooter to take the Olympic gold more than once.
“That’ll never get tiring. For me it’s something that I work for for four years,” Hancock said. “At this point, it just seems to be the luck of the draw for me. I do the best that I can and just hope and pray for the best.”
After all shots had been fired, he joined the aforementioned group after winning the gold medal in Paris. And to add the cherry on top, his fellow North Texan and training teammate, Conner Prince, won the silver medal.
Shooters are eliminated one by one in the finals, and when Taiwan shooter Lee Meng-yuan ended in bronze-medal position, that set up a fight for the gold between Hancock and Prince, who grinned and shook hands.
Hancock had two misses close together midway through the competition but rallied to hit every one of his last 26 targets. Prince missed one shot from his final sequence of four to give Hancock the chance to close out the win.
“That last pass, where I knew he and I were 1-2, I didn’t have as much adrenaline as I had at the beginning of the final,” Prince said. "I wouldn’t say it wore off. It was just more of a relief on that last pass, just because I knew that we did it. Obviously I wanted to get gold, but I don’t care. He and I went 1-2 like we were talking about doing. The fact that we made it reality is remarkable.”
That's right, the two best men's skeet shooters in the world live here in DFW.
WFAA spoke with Hancock, who moved to Fort Worth in 2014 before later settling in Argyle in Denton County, about his journey to claim the fourth gold medal. He opened up to WFAA about how this will be the first Olympic games without his dad.
"It’s definitely going to be difficult competing without him," Hancock admitted. "I hope that he’s up there watching. And I hope [he] enjoys the show.”
As Hancock fired his final shot to clinch his fourth gold medal, he and Prince embraced and cheered together.
Prince, who lives in Fort Worth and works at his father’s machine shop in Burleson, started training with Hancock in 2018. The two train together at Northlake Shooting Sports.
It was Prince's first Olympic games and the first Olympic medal of his skeet shooting career. Prince is a senior manufacturing and industrial management major at Tarleton State University. Prince becomes the first competitor in school history to earn a medal in an Olympic event, according to university archives.
There's another shot at a medal in the mixed team skeet event Monday. Hancock also said he'll chase a fifth individual gold medal in four years in Los Angeles.
“I’m definitely intending on going through LA 2028. That will probably be my last one," Hancock said. "I considered this one being my last, but the opportunity to represent the U.S. on U.S. soil in LA is just too good to turn it down.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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