Jitu Rai prevented a Chinese medal sweep in shooting yesterday, giving India its first gold of the Games by snatching the men’s 50m pistol individual title in a dramatic finish.
The 27-year-old non-commissioned officer in the Indian army trailed Vietnam’s Nguyen Hoang by 0.2 points with just one shot remaining to decide the winner.
Nguyen managed a score of 5.8 before Rai kept his cool to seal the title with a shot of 8.4 amid loud claps from the stands.
Rai finished with 186.2 points and Nguyen 183.4. Wang Zhiwei of China claimed the bronze with 165.6 points.
“Winning an Asiad gold had always been on my mind, so obviously this is just great,” said Rai, whose last six world-level finals this year have either produced a gold or a silver.
Rai will next compete in today’s 10m event.
Earlier in the day, unheralded Zhang Mengyuan stunned hosts South Korea as China grabbed three of the four shooting golds.
Zhang, who finished 20th in the women’s 10m air pistol at this month’s World Championships in Spain, beat Korean favourite Jung Jee-Hae into second spot in the individual event after helping China win team gold.
China claimed the first ever gold medal of the Incheon Games when the women’s 10m pistol shooters combined to snatch the team gold ahead of defending champions South Korea who wound up fourth.