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October/November 2024 | maconmagazine.com 29 C entral Georgia native Vincent Hancock grew up in Eatonton, but has made his name in Beijing, London, Rio, Tokyo, and Paris. The five-time Olympian and six-time World Champion skeet shooter sat down with sports reporter Micah Johnston to discuss how he got from his roots to grab the gold. Only 0.5% of Olympic athletes make it to 5 Olympic games – and only 0.0000017% of people have been an Olympic athlete. That gives eleven-zeroes-before .85% percent rarity as an athlete like Hancock. During his time in Paris, he ate plenty of French bread and met Snoop Dogg – but most important to Hancock is spending time with family. I've heard you picked up your first BB gun at age 3 or 4. Could you give us a snapshot of your road to becoming a four-time olympic gold skeet athlete? I grew up around shooting sports, as my father was a trap shooter since before I can remember. When I was 10 years old, I picked up my first shotgun and shot my first clay targets. I started at a club just east of Atlanta and then quickly progressed into shooting sporting clays all over the state. In March 2001 I found out that shooting sports were in the Olympics, so I went to Atlanta (where the 1996 Olympic Games were held) and tried my hand at Olympic discipline for the first time. Needless to say, I fell in love with it and I've been doing it ever since! Was there a particular moment when it dawned on you that this could be a career – that your skills were quite literally world-class? I think the realization started to set in when I was about 15 years old. That's when I won my first open men's competition. I would be lying if I said that I expected to accomplish what I've been able to in my career, but I knew that I had a chance to be good and I wanted to take it as far as I could. LEFT Hancock in action at the Paris 2024 Olympics during the mixed skeet team final. With teammate Austen Smith, they won a silver medal. BELOW Hancock owns Northlake Shooting Sports in Texas, a youth-oriented facility where he coaches other shooters. He mentored Conner Prince, pictured here, to his first Olympic Games this year.