5 Best Skeet Shooting Coaches of All Time

10 shotgun coaches, from Todd Bender to Valeri Timokhin and Russell Mark, each with achievements, years active, athletes coached and nationality.

Every name below comes with the achievements that carry it, the years they were active, the teams or athletes they worked with and their nationality. The order is our own reading of their mark on skeet shooting, not a trophy count, and a short FAQ closes the page.

If you are working through the subject more broadly, we keep the same kind of list for skeet shooting books and skeet shooting films and documentaries.

Best Skeet Shooting Coaches:

Todd Bender
Vincent Hancock
George Digweed
Kim Rhode
Paul Giambrone III
Valeri Timokhin
Russell Mark
Adam Vella
Joe Neville
Ahmed Al-Maktoum

#1 Todd Bender

🏆 Achievements: World Skeet Shooting Champion; NSSA Hall of Fame
📅 Years Active: 1980s to Present
👕 Teams Coached: Individual Coaching
🌐 Nationality: American

Todd Bender is recognized as one of the premier skeet shooting coaches in the world, with a career that boasts multiple championships and a reputation for exceptional marksmanship. Holder of numerous world records and a member of the NSSA Hall of Fame, his contributions to the sport are innumerable.

With a focus on fundamentals and mental preparation, Bender has dedicated his life to the sport, teaching shooters of all levels to improve their skills and compete at higher levels. His instructional methods have been widely adopted, influencing skeet shooting coaching techniques globally.

Bender’s standing in the skeet shooting community is not just based on his competitive successes but also on his ability to articulate the finer points of the sport. He has produced a series of instructional videos and writings that have become valuable resources for aspiring skeet shooters.

#2 Vincent Hancock

🏆 Achievements: Two-time Olympic Gold Medalist
📅 Years Active: 2005 to Present
👕 Teams Coached: Individual Coaching
🌐 Nationality: American

Vincent Hancock is celebrated not only for being a highly accomplished skeet shooter but also an influential coach in the field. With two Olympic gold medals, his shooting prowess is unquestionably elite, setting a high standard for those he coaches.

His transition from champion athlete to mentor allows him to impart crucial insights rooted in personal experience at the highest levels of the sport. Hancock focuses on the mental sharpness and precision required to excel in competitive skeet shooting, traits that he exemplifies.

Despite his relatively young age, Hancock’s ability to communicate and train other shooters, combined with his remarkable track record as an athlete, place him among the best skeet shooting coaches in the world.

#3 George Digweed

🏆 Achievements: 26-time World Champion across multiple disciplines
📅 Years Active: 1980s to Present
👕 Teams Coached: Individual Coaching
🌐 Nationality: British

George Digweed MBE has a legendary status in the world of clay shooting, with a career studded with world titles across various disciplines, including skeet. His experience and success are unparalleled, making his insights and methodology highly sought after by shooters worldwide.

His coaching style is reflective of his experience, emphasizing the discipline and consistency that have been the hallmarks of his competitive success. As a coach, Digweed imparts strategies and techniques honed over decades of competition at the highest levels.

Digweed’s influence extends beyond his immediate students, as he has been a vocal advocate for the sport, working to elevate its profile and inspire the next generation of shooters to achieve their potential.

#4 Kim Rhode

🏆 Achievements: Six-time Olympic medalist; multiple World Cup titles
📅 Years Active: 1996 to Present
👕 Teams Coached: Individual Coaching
🌐 Nationality: American

Kim Rhode is a trailblazer in women’s skeet shooting, with six Olympic medals to her name, making her one of the most accomplished Olympic shooters of all time. Her consistent performance over a span of six Olympic Games is a testament to her skill and longevity in the sport.

Beyond her personal achievements, Rhode has nurtured and encouraged the development of other shooters. Her ability to translate competitive experience into practical coaching advice has benefitted numerous athletes who seek to follow in her footsteps.

Rhode’s impact on the sport is profound, breaking barriers and setting new standards for excellence. As a coach, she continues to inspire and develop talent, bolstering the future of skeet shooting.

#5 Paul Giambrone III

🏆 Achievements: Multiple-time World Skeet Champion
📅 Years Active: 2000s to Present
👕 Teams Coached: Individual Coaching
🌐 Nationality: American

Paul Giambrone III is a prominent figure in the skeet shooting community, with several world championship titles to his name. His competitive spirit and command of the sport have made him a notable coach among both beginners and experienced skeet shooters.

Giambrone has a passion for the art of skeet shooting and stresses the importance of precision, timing, and mental discipline to his students. His contributions to coaching are augmented by his continued involvement in competitive shooting, keeping his teachings grounded and current.

Drawing from a wealth of competitive experience, Giambrone is widely respected for his dedication to the sport and his ability to foster talent, making him a highly sought-after coach in the skeet shooting world.

#6 Valeri Timokhin

🏆 Achievements: National shotgun coach in several countries across nine Olympic Games, who took Catherine Skinner to trap gold in 2016 and coached a long list of world championship shooters.
📅 Years Active: 1997 to today
👕 Athletes Coached: Catherine Skinner, Laetisha Scanlan, Abdullah Al Rashidi, Nasser Al Attiyah
🌐 Nationality: Soviet born, worked for Azerbaijan and Australia

Timokhin has coached at nine Olympic Games for different federations, which in a sport with tiny national programmes makes him one of the few genuinely full time shotgun coaches in the world.

His athletes span trap and skeet and four continents, from Australian gold in Rio to Kuwaiti and Qatari medallists.

#7 Russell Mark

🏆 Achievements: ISSF licensed A class coach and lecturer at the ISSF Coaching Academy, who has trained shooters in more than a dozen countries.
📅 Years Active: 1996 to today, ISSF Academy lecturer since 2024
👕 Athletes Coached: Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Prince Sufri Bolkiah of Brunei
🌐 Nationality: Australia

Mark was Olympic champion in double trap in 1996 and moved into coaching while still competing, which is common in shotgun disciplines because careers run long.

Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore took double trap silver in Athens 2004, the first individual Olympic medal India had won in a shooting event.

#8 Adam Vella

🏆 Achievements: National high performance shotgun coach of Shooting Australia since December 2016, and an Olympic trap medallist himself.
📅 Years Active: December 2016 to today
👕 Athletes Coached: Laetisha Scanlan and the Australian trap squad
🌐 Nationality: Australia

Vella took bronze in trap at Athens 2004 and then moved into the national coaching structure, running the programme that feeds the Australian Olympic shotgun team.

Australia has punched above its weight in trap and skeet for two decades, and the coaching structure is why.

#9 Joe Neville

🏆 Achievements: Personal coach at the E.J. Churchill shooting ground who took a shooter to Olympic skeet silver in Paris 2024.
📅 Years Active: To at least 2024
👕 Athletes Coached: Amber Rutter
🌐 Nationality: United Kingdom

Amber Rutter reached the Paris 2024 skeet final a few months after giving birth and lost the gold by a single disputed target. The preparation for that ran through a private shooting ground, not a national centre.

British shotgun shooting works largely through commercial grounds like Churchill, where the leading coaches are attached to the venue rather than the federation.

#10 Ahmed Al-Maktoum

🏆 Achievements: Olympic double trap champion who then coached a British shooter to Olympic gold in the same event.
📅 Years Active: From about 2008 as a coach
👕 Athletes Coached: Peter Wilson, Olympic double trap champion in London 2012
🌐 Nationality: United Arab Emirates

Al-Maktoum won the first Olympic medal in the history of the United Arab Emirates, in Athens 2004, and afterwards coached Peter Wilson largely by telephone and video from Dubai.

Wilson took gold in London 2012 with a coaching arrangement that had almost no face to face training in it, which says something about how technical shotgun coaching has become.