It came down to the final shot for Lee Dae Myung of South Korea to take gold in the 50m pistol event at the World University Games on Thursday.

The first medal event saw the top three qualifiers switch spots multiple times throughout the last ten shots of the day for an exciting start to shooting competition.

Lee qualified for the final round in second place and fell to third place by the seventh shot of the finals. But with his final three bullets he was excellent, recoding a 9.9, 10.4 and 10.3 in order. The last bullet proved crucial as Lee trailed Damir Mikec of Serbia by 0.3 points entering the final shot.

Mikec was consistently the final shooter on the range to take his shot each round. After Lee's score of 10.3 lit up the overhead screen the crowd waited in silence for the Serbian leader to end the match.

Mikec record a 9.2, dropping him into second place, and giving the Korean the gold. Mikec finished with a score of 662.4 for the day and a silver medal for his efforts.

China's Mai Jiajie entered the final round as the top competitor but had a tumultuous last ten shots. The front runner started off with a 7.5 and 7.1 score to immediately drop him out of the lead.

Mai found his form again in the next four shots with consecutive scores above 10 but a 9.0 in the seventh shot kept him from retaking the lead. He finished with bronze at 662.2.

Pang Wei of China finished fourth with 659.3. Mai, Pang and teammate Wang Zhiwei teamed up for the team gold medal in the event.

Lee and teammates Gil Yang Sup and Jang Ha Lim took silver. Poland took bronze in the team rankings thanks to Witoslaw Krazak, Tomasz Palamarz and Tamsz Wawrzonowski.

Also on Thursday, Niccolo Campriani of Italy was just five shots from perfection on his way to the gold medal in men's 10m air rifle.

The Italian shooter, also the world champion in the event, only missed the 10-ring five times over 70 shots. His qualification round score of 599 was just one point off the maximum score possible and world record.

Campriani started shaky in the finals with a 9.4 on the first shot and a 9.3 in the fifth, but a strong finishing five kept him safely in the lead throughout the match.

South Korea's Yu Jae Chul entered the final round in seventh and three full points out of the bronze medal position. He snuck into third with his ninth shot while his 10th shot of 10.7 landed him the silver medal by just a 10th of a point. He finished the day with a 696.

Gong Jiawei of China sat in second when the final round began but after Yu's crucial final shot he ended third. His 695.9 earned him the bronze medal.

Campriani added another gold medal with a victory in the team 10m air rifle along with Tommaso Leonardi and Giovanni Matraxia.

Gong joined Chinese teammates Cao Yifei and Zhang Qiang for the team silver medal. Russia claimed bronze with shooters Vladimir Tugushev, Nazar Luginets and Andrey Konkov.

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)