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Athlete of the Week: Max LamontFew college athletes can begin a new sport during their freshman year and rank as one of that sport's top national competitors by the end of their sophomore year. Last spring, Max Lamont, CC '00, did just that by winning two gold medals at the National Skeet and Trap Shooting Championships. Lamont medaled in the Class C Five Stand Sporting Clays and Class D American Skeet divisions, less than two years after he took up skeet shooting, an interest that grew out of frequent hunting trips he went on growing up in Dallas, Texas.
Because La-mont hunted for many years before joining the skeet-shooting team as a freshman, his greatest success thus far has come in the sporting clays, the division which best simulates bird hunting. It was Lamont's love of hunting that brought him to the team when he arrived at Yale. He said, "All my life I had grown up hunting, and I thought it would be fun to do. I just wanted a way to get outdoors and shoot a little." Lamont and his fellow competitive skeet and trap shooters use 12-gauge shotguns to shoot down discs travelling through the air at 50 to 80 miles per hour. The team of approximately 10 athletes competes in four divisions at the national championships: American skeet, International skeet, trap, and sporting clay shooting. American and International skeet shooters aim at discs that go back and forth through air, while sporting clay involves targets that come through the air at different angles and directions. Athletes are scored in the skeet-shooting competitions according to the number of discs they shoot down in each of the four rounds of 25 discs. Additionally, they are scored in the trap shooting event by the number they shoot down in each of eight rounds of 25 discs. At the national competition, the athletes must successfully earn the right to compete in certain classes according to their performance in the first two rounds of each event. Lamont and approximately 80 other athletes successfully achieved Class C status in sporting clays based on their performance in the early rounds. Although he and his teammates only practice once a week, Lamont's previous experience in hunting combined with a number of pointers from skeet-shooting coach Tom Midgalski allowed Lamont to shoot at a 60 to 70 percent clip in the sporting clays and 86 to 90 percent in the American skeet division at last year's Nationals competition. After experiencing a taste of success in his sport, Lamont now hopes to increase his focus and reach the next level. He said, "I hope that in the next two years I can make new goals for myself and do better at the events." --Deirdre Brill
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