USA Shooting athlete Sam Simonton capped off the 2024 competition season the same way she started it – standing center podium with a women’s skeet gold medal around her neck.
The Gainesville native picked up her second gold medal of the year at recent 2024 International Shooting Sport Federation’s (ISSF) World Cup Final in New Delhi, India, following up her women’s skeet gold medal won in January at the ISSF World Cup in Cairo, Egypt. Simonton’s win marked the only medal garnered by Team USA at the New Delhi event.
The 25-year-old Simonton is one of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit’s elite shotgunners.
“I’m happy to have won. My goal was to win, but deeper into that, I wanted to shoot a good final,” Simonton said to USA Shooting’s Brittany Nelson regarding her gold medal performance. “It will probably take me some time to give it and myself some more credit. I proved a lot to myself this competition, specifically in the final.”
Simonton says she credits a positive mindset, along with training with her Army teammates, for maintaining her composure in the final.
“I’ve always recognized that finals have historically been my weakest,” she said. “There is always room for improvement.”
Simonton’s next visit to the skeet field in competition will be the 2025 USA Shooting shotgun selection match next spring.
Earlier this year, she tried but failed to make the U.S. Olympic team. Gville woman misses ‘shot’ at Olympics