Ban Hyo-jin of South Korea competes in the final of the women's 10-meter air rifle event at the Paris Olympics at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre in Chateauroux, France, on Monday. (Yonhap)
Teen shooter Ban Hyo-jin captured the gold medal in the women's 10-meter air rifle at the Paris Olympics on Monday, becoming South Korea's youngest shooting medalist ever at age 16.
Ban edged out Huang Yuting of China in a shoot-off, 10.4 points to 10.3 points, after the two teens tied the Olympic record with 251.8 points in the final at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre in Chateauroux, south of Paris.
This was South Korea's fourth gold medal of the Paris Olympics and its 100th gold medal in its Summer Games history.
Ban, who only picked up shooting three years ago, blew what should have been a comfortable lead in the final stretch before coming up clutch in the nail-biting shoot-off.
Ban had won Sunday's qualification phase with an Olympic record score of 634.5 points.
In the final, two series of five shots were fired at first, with shooters given 250 seconds per series and the perfect score being 10.9.
Those 10 shots were followed by 14 single shots, fired on command within 50 seconds per shot. Eliminations of the lowest-scoring finalists began after the 12th shot -- the series and then the first two single shots -- and continued after every two shots until the gold and the silver medals were decided.
After two series, Ban was in second place with 104.8 points, 0.7 behind Huang and 0.2 ahead of Audrey Gogniat of Switzerland.
Ban began cutting into her deficit in the single-shot stage, and then grabbed the lead with a perfect 10.9 with her 16th shot that gave her 168.7 points, now 0.1 better than the 17-year-old Chinese.
Huang pulled into a tie at 200.5 points by hitting 10.7 with her 19th shot, while Ban managed a 10.5. But Ban regained her lead with her next shot, scoring 10.5 to Huang's 10.4
It was essentially a two-horse race for the gold at that point, with Gogniat mostly out of sight. Ban extended her lead at 221.7-221.4 with the 21st shot, and appeared to have virtually locked down the gold when Huang stumbled to a 9.6 on the 22nd shot while Ban hit a 10.6.
With Gogniat now eliminated, Ban held a 1.3-point lead with two shots left.
Ban hit a 9.9 with her 23rd shot, seconds after Huang put a 10.3 on the board. The lead was now down to 0.9 point.
It still should have been enough for Ban, but Huang, refusing to go away, struck a 10.5. Ban only needed to hit a 9.7 or better but ended up scoring a 9.6, setting up the thrilling shoot-off.
As had been the case throughout the final, Huang fired first and hit a 10.3. And Ban, having gathered herself after the near disaster of a finish, scored a 10.4 to clinch the historic gold medal. (Yonhap)
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