Wu Liuxi won Gold after equalling the World Record during the qualifications. It was the last shot that decided the podium placements of the 10m Air Rifle Women event, which saw two home shooters climbing on the podium with a few tenths margin.
The 2008 and 2009 ISSF World Cup Final winner, China’s Wu Liuxi, 25, entered the match in the lead with an outstanding qualification score of 400 points, equalling the World Record for the third time in her career.
Beate Gauss of Germany, following her just one point behind with a qualification score of 399 points, challenged her since the first final shot, trying to move in the lead.The two rifle shooters duelled throughout the whole final, going back and forth in first and second place, right to the last shot, when Gauss fired a frustrating 9.2 that landed her in third place. The second Chinese finalist, Yi Siling, took advantage of Gauss’s mistake, moving up in second place, claiming Silver and stepping on the podium next to her teammate Wu.
Wu Liuxi claimed Gold with a total score of 502.7 points (400+102.7), winning her first medal on the Olympic Shooting range of Beijing.
Yi Siling, 20, finished in second place with a total score of 502.6 points. After squeezing into the final match through a qualification shoot-off with 397 points + 52.9, the young Chinese athlete shot an extreme score of 105.6 points during the final, securing the second ISSF Silver medal of her international career (she had finished on the podium also at the 2009 World Cup Stage held here in Beijing).
Bronze was taken by Germany’s Beate Gauss, 25, who after that unlucky shot closed the match on the third step of the podium with a total score of 501.9 points (399+102.9).
Two American shooters, Amy Sowash and Emily Caruso, finished in fourth and fifth place with 501.5 and 501.0 points, respectively. The second German shooter, Barbara Lechner, ended up in sixth place, with a total of 500.4 points, after shooting-off 10.6 to 10.0 the Russian Olympic medallist Lioubov Galkina, seventh today.