How North Texas Olympians are preparing for the Tokyo Games amid coronavirus concerns
Vincent Hancock remembers the tunnel being pitch black as Team USA readied to march into the Bird’s Nest during the opening ceremonies at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
“I couldn’t see anything,” Hancock said, recalling his first Olympic appearance following a practice session at Fort Worth Trap & Skeet last week.
“I’m standing behind the flag bearer and I remember looking up at the flag and it goes from pitch black to nothing but super bright red, white and blue. It was amazing.
“All of a sudden, you’re walking into the stadium and you feel the electricity. People slowly start chanting, ‘U-S-A! U-S-A!’ It gets louder and louder and louder. It’s unreal. That feeling is why I want to go back to the Olympics again and again and again.”
Those powerful feelings felt during the opening ceremonies were even more memorable than actually winning a gold medal, Hancock said.
The Fort Worth resident would know, too, after winning consecutive Olympic gold medals as the world’s best skeet shooter in 2008 in Beijing and 2012 in London. He participated, but didn’t medal, at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.
“What’s it like getting a gold medal hung around your neck? It’s a dream come true,” said Hancock, a former sergeant in the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit. “Listening to the National Anthem play is just a surreal feeling and a rush of emotions. It’s the culmination of your life’s work. But the greatest experience is the opening ceremonies, walking in with Team USA.”
Hancock, who turned 31 on Thursday, is hopeful to experience his fourth opening ceremony this summer in Tokyo. He qualified to represent Team USA in men’s skeet for the fourth straight Games earlier this month at the shotgun trials in Tucson, Arizona.
So did a couple other members of USA Shooting who continue to train and prepare for the Games at Fort Worth Trap & Skeet.
Austen Smith, an 18-year-old from Keller, is set to make her first appearance in the Olympics after qualifying in women’s skeet. Brian Burrows, a 32-year-old Californian who recently relocated to Denton, is also set to participate in his first Olympics as a trap shooter.
But the coronavirus pandemic has put the Games in jeopardy of being postponed, or possibly canceled. USA Swimming and USA Track & Field, as well as Norway’s and Brazil’s national Olympic committees, are notable entities who have all called for the Games to be postponed to 2021 in recent days.
That’s a reality all three shooters — and all of the Team USA delegation — are facing in the coming weeks. For now, though, they have to train as though the Games will take place as scheduled.
“We’ve been given the direction to be careful, be safe, but also prepare,” Hancock said. “I’m praying it’s not a cancellation. If anything, it might be postponed. But I hope nothing happens. I hope it stays the same.
“I continue to train like it’s going to stay the same just because we never know. God willing, I’ll be ready to go back and get another gold.”
The same can be said for Smith and Burrows. Both have taken unlikely journeys to reach the Olympics.
Smith started shooting competitively six years ago and has risen quickly in the sport. To qualify for the Olympics earlier this month, she beat out respected veterans such as six-time Olympian Kim Rhode (who has won six Olympic medals, three in skeet and three in double trap) and 2017 world champion Dania Vizzi.
“I wasn’t really expecting to make this one, to be honest,” Smith said. “It was an extremely close match. We had six women who could’ve made the team. You’d think it’d be nerve-wracking, but it just drove me to do better. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
Neither would Burrows.
He retired from competitive trap shooting in 2016, believing he’d never reach the Olympics. Countries have to qualify for spots in the respective disciplines and the United States failed to qualify for men’s trap at the 2012 and 2016 Games.
But Burrows returned to competitive shooting in 2018. He started winning events and making podiums, eventually helping the United States to qualify for the Olympics in men’s trap by winning the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru.
He then qualified for the team in a tight battle at the trials earlier this month.
“From being retired to making every team I shot at to then winning the quota spot for our country to making the Olympic Games has been a Cinderella story,” said Burrows, who opened Ironwood Axe Throwing in Denton with his brother last fall. “I’m getting really excited for the Olympics.”
Burrows paused and then circled back to the real threat that the Games could be postponed or canceled amid the worldwide pandemic. As much as people want to block it out, it’s on everybody’s mind.
“On some level, it’s hard to get excited for the Games because of that,” Burrows said. “But that’s not to say I won’t be ready and prepared when, and if, we get to go. It has crossed my mind and it would be terrible if it’s canceled. But we want to keep the team safe. We want to keep all the spectators safe. I just hope and pray it happens. Just to be able to go to the Olympics would be phenomenal.”
What is skeet and trap shooting?
The shooting sports at the Olympics have different disciplines such as skeet, for which Hancock and Smith qualified, and trap, for which Burrows qualified.
Skeet is the name of the game, as shooters use shotguns to break clay targets flung into the air at high speeds from a variety of angles out of two fixed stations. The two stations are referred to as the “high house” and the “low house.”
As Hancock explained, “The sport was originally invented by two guys in London practicing for hunting. The targets cross over a central point and we shoot them from eight stations that are laid out in a semicircle.”
Smith likes the sport because it’s black-and-white. There are no judges involved such as other Olympic sports like gymnastics or equestrian. “Either you hit the target or miss it,” he said.
Trap, meanwhile, has just one clay target that is going away from the shooter, unlike skeet where two targets are crossing in front.
As Burrows put it, “The targets are flying at 70 mph and could go high, low, 45 degrees left, 45 degrees right. There’s 25 targets per round and two shots per target.”
At the Olympics, skeet and trap competitors will shoot 125 targets over two days and the top six will advance to the finals. At that point, scores are reset and shooters are in a knockout-style format where the low-shooter after 20 targets is eliminated until there is a champion.
“It’s a long process and then it’s a sprint at the end,” Hancock said. “It’s fun being there for the finals.”
This story was originally published March 22, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
