NEW DELHI, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Chinese shooters Sheng Lihao and Huang Yuting both claimed their second gold medal at the ISSF World Cup in Bhopal, India from individual 10m air rifle events on Friday fresh after teaming up to win the mixed team a day before.
In men's 10m air rifle, Sheng shot for an impressive 635.4 points in the qualification, four points more than his second-placed teammate Du Linshu.
Olympic silver medalist Sheng led the field for the majority of the time in the ranking match and held on to the top position with 264.2 points despite a short takeover by Du midway, and Du's 263.3 points were enough to secure an all-Chinese gold medal match.
China had the chance to complete a podium sweep but Yu Haonan squandered his 0.5-point lead before the final series where Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil had a strong performance in front of home crowd and squeezed into the top three (262.3).
The gold medal match was extremely tight as Du managed to level the score every time Sheng took a step forward. He tied the match for the sixth time at 13-13 with a 10.9, only to see Sheng answer with two perfect shots in a row to clinch the victory 17-13.
In the women's competition, world silver medalist Huang was dominant right from the qualifications, and stayed firmly on top in the ranking match with a massive 4.5-point advantage over Mary Carolynn Tucker of the United States and Alexandra Le of Kazakhstan, who tied at 219.3 points. In the shoot-off, Tucker made an unbeatable 10.9 to make it into the gold medal match while Le had to settle for a bronze.
There was little suspense in the clash for gold as Huang made only one shot below 10.5 on her way to an 11-1 lead, a 10.3 that saw her share the points with Tucker. The 16-year-old continued her stable performance and wrapped up the match 16-4 to take her title in Bhopal.
With two more gold and one silver medal from Friday, China sits firmly on top of the tally with five gold, one silver and two bronze medals. The only gold medal that eluded China so far went to Sarabjot Singh of India, who triumphed in men's 10m air pistol.
The World Cup will have its penultimate matchday on Saturday with men's 50m rifle 3 positions and women's 25m pistol on offer. ■
