Troy University graduate Vincent Hancock hit his last 26 shots in the men’s skeet final at the Paris Olympics on Saturday to become the fourth U.S. athlete to win the individual gold medal in the same Olympic event four times.

Hancock also won the men’s skeet competition at the Summer Games in Beijing in 2008, London in 2012 and Tokyo in 2021. He finished 15th at Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

Al Oerter won the gold medal in the discus at the 1956, 1960, 1964 and 1968 Summer Olympics, Carl Lewis won the long jump at the 1984, 1988, 1992 and 1996 games and Michael Phelps won the men’s 200-meter individual medley in 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016.

Two other athletes have won individual Olympic gold in the same event four times – Denmark’s Paul Elvstrom in firefly/finn sailing in 1948, 1952, 1956 and 1960 and Cuba’s Mijain Lopez in the 120/130-kilogram class of Greco-Roman wrestling in 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2021.

Shooting at 11-centimeter targets sent flying two at a time at Chateauroux Shooting Center, Hancock was the only one of the six finalists to go 20-for-20 in Stage 1, when Peru’s Nicolas Pacheco Espinosa was eliminated.

In the first half of Stage 2 shooting, the United States’ Conner Lynn Prince, who is coached by Hancock, hit all 20 of his targets to take the lead as Hancock missed on his ninth and 14th shots in the round.

Sweden’s Stefan Nilsson and Italy’s Tammaro Cassandro were eliminated, leaving Prince, Hancock and Chinese Taipei’s Lee Meng-yuan moving on to decide the medals, with Prince in front with 39-of-40 hits followed by Hancock at 38 and Lee at 37.

The Taiwanese competitor missed two of his first four shots in the medal stage and was eliminated with the bronze medal after 10 shots.

Prince missed his fourth shot, and Hancock caught him with perfect shooting through 10 targets.

As the Americans moved to the final 10 targets, each went 4-of-4 and 2-of-2, with Prince shooting before Hancock.

On the final four targets, Prince missed on his first shot, opening the gold-medal door for Hancock, who shut it with another four hits to finish with 58 in 60 shots in the finals.

In qualifying, Prince, Lee and Cassandro had one miss apiece in 125 shots. Hancock went 75-of-75 on Friday but had two misses on Saturday morning to qualify for the finals in the fourth position.

Hancock is the only skeet shooter in Olympic history to win more than one individual gold medal.

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.