Shooting-Skeet great Hancock targets perfection in Paris

Vincent Hancock is not bragging when he says he has achieved pretty much everything in skeet shooting and will be competing more against himself than the field at the Paris Olympics.

Coming from a three-time Olympic gold medallist and a five-time world champion, it is rather a case of stating the obvious by the 35-year-old American.

"My expectation for every event that I go to is always gold," Hancock told Reuters in a video call from north Texas, where he runs a shooting range, on his target in Paris.

"It may not be what I get, but at the same time, that's what I'm going for. That's what I'm actively training every day for."

It sounds a reasonable expectation considering Hancock has struck gold in three of his four Olympic appearances.

A 15th place finish in Rio denied him a hat-trick but he righted the wrong in Tokyo and is now gunning to become only the sixth athlete to win four Olympic golds in the same individual event.

Men's skeet, where competitors use shotguns to break clay targets flung into the air, has become much more competitive over the last decade, and it was "getting harder and harder to win", he observed.

"I'm not really worried about necessarily beating them," he said.

"I'm trying to go out and beat myself. I'm trying to go out there and be the best version of myself I've ever been."

"I know that if I truly do my best and I am at my peak level, then perfection is absolutely attainable.

"If you don't miss, you can't be beaten."

His rivals will be disappointed if they expected Hancock to be complacent.

WAKE-UP CALL

He considers his failure to make the final of the Lonato World Cup in June a "wake-up call", which has been followed by "a few little epiphany moments".

He has fixed his grip since and resumed his