American teenage shooter Vincent Hancock snatched the Olympic gold medal of men's skeet at the Beijing Shooting Range on Saturday, with an Olympic record 145 hits.
Norwegian Tore Brovold collected the same score but lost in the shoot-off to get a silver. The bronze was gained by Frenchman Anthony Terras with 144 hits.
Hancock, world record holder with a staggering full mark of 150 hits, topped the tally of qualification this time with 121 hits, one point ahead of co-second Brovold, Terras and Antonis Nikolaidis from Cyprus.
In the final, the 19-year-old world champion took the lead until the six series, when he missed the second one of the three targets.
Nikolaidis missed the eighth bird while Terras let go of the 13th to end in a draw.
Brovold, 38-year-old champion at 2004 World Cup Final and bronze-medalist in 2006 World Championships and World Cup Final, managed to finish his performance in a stretch without misses, forcing his American rival to a shoot-off.
Standing at the fourth position, one that was considered hardest, the pair both caught the first pair of plates.
In the second pair, the Norwegian shot down the first but saw the second churning to the left.
Hancock, who appeared a little bit nervous by frequently wiping his hands, downed both at the breathtaking moment.
Turning around, he saw his 74-year-old coach jumping in excitement.
Terras, 23, who finished 9th at Athens Olympics, had another shoot-off with Nikolaidis.
Both shooters missed the second bird of the first pair, but the French shooter didn't repeat the mistake in the second pair and hence outscored the 41-year-old Cypriot.
Chinese shooter Qu Ridong, with 118 hits, advanced into the final after a shoot-off with six other shooters including his teammate Jin Di. He missed just the last target at the fourth position. But previous score gap was so big that he remained as sixth.
(Xinhua News Agency August 16, 2008)