Shooter Jin Jong-oh survived a mid-final wobble to claim victory in the men’s 10m air pistol on Saturday to give South Korea their first gold medal of the London Olympics.
Jin finished with a score of 688.2 after his 10 shots in the eight-man final with Italy’s Luca Tesconi winning silver with 685.8 and Serbia’s Andrija Zlatic taking bronze on 685.2.
After a 60 shot qualifying heat where a top score of 600 was available, the field was cut to eight for the final with those remaining firing 10 times at a target where a top score of 10.9 was on offer for each shot.
Photo: Reuters
After coming through both nerve-wracking stages, the South Korean, who will defend his Beijing Games 50m pistol title in London, threw both fists into the air in relief.
“I was very nervous. I did my best to overcome my anxiety, but I will try to improve my performance for the next event,” Jin told reporters.
The South Korean appeared to be coasting to victory after he had built up a 4.4 points advantage after five rounds, but Jin then opened the door to his opponents as he struggled, scoring four consecutive nines with Tesconi cutting the advantage to 1.3 before the final shot.
However, the 32-year-old Jin held his nerve and saved his best for last by firing a 10.8 to take gold, with his silver in the discipline four years ago.
Tesconi could only manage a 9.7 with his final shot, but he celebrated like he had won gold after securing a surprise silver after the 30-year-old started the final sixth.
“It is a dream come true,” said Tesconi, who said he had kept his family away from the action as he did not want them watching him.
“It is a fairytale, it’s the best day of my life. It was a rollercoaster of the competition. I was tense and nervous in the beginning, but I closed into a bubble of concentration and relived the experience of training at home,” he said.
China’s defending champion Pang Wei finished a disappointing fourth after some erratic shooting, which brought five nines and a number of groans from his many supporters in the crowd.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
RSS