Student Spotlight - Gabby Franco

I had the distinct honor of providing Sporting Clays and 5 Stand instruction to Gabby Franco to prepare her for the upcoming 2024 NRA World Shooting Championship presented by Walther Arms at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, April 4-6, 2024. This competition is the ultimate all-encompassing tournament that crowns an undisputed "World Shooting Champion" from amateur and professional shooters. Gabby is a former Olympian, Firearms Instructor, Competitive Shooter, former Top Shot Contestant, Author, and a member of the Walther Performance Division (Shooting Team). Follow Gabby on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gabbyfrancots4/

Learn more about Gabby: https://gabbyfranco.com/

Gabby is no stranger to major shooting competitions. She has competed in dozens of countries, won national and international medals, competed in the Olympics, became the first woman to advance to the final phase of Top Shot, given classes on the mental aspects of shooting and written her first book, ‘TroubleShooting: Mastering your Pistol Marksmanship’. Gabby first competed in a national competition, taking third place. She later silver medaled in the Pan-American competition, making her the second-best shooter in the Americas and earning her a slot on the 1999 Olympic air pistol team making her the first female shooter to represent Venezuela in the Olympics. Although she didn't medal in the Olympics, she went on to win 3 gold medals at the South American Games in Resende, Brazil.

The NRA World Shooting Championship is a Squadded Individual Match that consists of twelve (12) fired events, which occur over three (3) days.

Stage 1 Sporting Clays

Stage 2 Precision Standing Air Gun

Stage 3 NRA Americas Rifle Challenge

Stage 4 NRA Precision Pistol

Stage 5  FITASC

Stage 6 3 Gun

Stage 7 NRA Mid-Range AR-Tactical

Stage 8  Biathlon

Stage 9 SASSS

Stage 10 PRS

Stage 11 Scholastic Action Shooting

Stage 12 USPSA

Although Gabby is an expert markswoman in many disciplines, she had very little experience in the shotgun sports and came to me for some much needed coaching in Sporting Clays and FITASC (Stage 1 and 5). I was amazed by how quickly she was able to pick up the fundamental techniques and then demonstrate proficiency in more advanced skills by our second session. Gabby had this to say about our training sessions - Thank you, Dave Gaetani (my new sporting clays coach) for being AWESOME and teaching me  so much in just a few hours of training! So, contact him if you are in NOVA and want to learn sporting clays correctly. I highly recommend him!

I am extremely grateful to Gabby Franco for selecting me as her coach and for recommending me to her friends and affording me the opportunity to coach her in preparation of the NRA World Championships next week. What an excellent student of the sport and world-class competitor in multiple disciplines but most importantly a wonderful person. Having Gabby as one of my students has definitely been the highlight of my Clay Shooting Instructor career. THANK YOU GABBY AND BEST OF LUCK IN THE NRA WORLD SHOOTING COMPETITION!