Chinese sharpshooter Zhu Qinan came from behind to clinch the fourth consecutive title of the men's 10-meter air rifle here on Saturday at the Milan shooting World Cup.
German veteran Sonja Pfeilschifer grabbed her first gold medal of the season.
Zhu, the gold medalist of the Athens Olympics in 2004 and runner-up at the Beijing Games 2008, shot down his second gold medal of the season with an advantage of 0.3 points from the 10-shot final round.
"It's my fourth win here in Milan consecutively, so I am happy," said Zhu, raising four fingers after the final.
"However, the scores are not very good. I won thanks to others' mistakes."
Tying with other five shooters on 596 points in the 60-shot qualification round and starting on the sixth lane, he collected 103.1 points in the final with nine shots inside the 10-point circle, while others shot two or three nine points and even eight points.
Artur Aivazian of Ukraine took the silver medal with a total score of 698.8 points followed by Henri Hakkinen of Finland on 697.6 points.
Zhu, 24, was also unsatisfied with the performance of the qualification round, where he had his lowest score in the four legs of World Cup this year.
"I shot three nines in the first 30 shots, then I stopped and sat there for five minutes, asking myself what I was doing here," said Zhu. "I knew the desire to win a fourth time had pushed me too much, so I told myself to take it easy. Why not lose here this year? Then next year I could start again from nothing."
He shot only one nine-point after going back to the shooting position.
After losing by a finger twice at her home soil, German veteran Sonja Pfeilschifer won first time in the women's 10-meter air rifle in the frowsty 10-meter hall in Milan by a total of 502.0 points.
Standing on the first position of the final with one point ahead, the world record holder kept her leading position from the beginning to the end, grabbing the gold by 0.5 points.
Two young ladies followed her with top two scores of the final. Petra Zublasing, the 19-year-old Italian debutant, won the silver medal on the last shot by a 10.6-point, only 0.1 point ahead of Chinese youngster Xie Jieqiong, 19, who shot down a silver medal also in her debut in Changwon World Cup this year.
"I had never won a world cup medal before, it's so good to be on the podium here in Milan, in front of all this spectators," said Zublasing. "I hope I will keep on shooting good results. I am studying engineering, training and working at the same time. That's not easy."
The Milan World Cup, from 23rd to 29th, is the fourth leg of the year for the ten Olympic shooting events of rifle and pistol.
(Xinhua News Agency May 24, 2009)
