China's Han Jiayu wins women's 10m air rifle at ISSF Baku World Cup

Beijing, May 13 (IANS) China's Han Jiayu won the women's 10m air rifle gold and her compatriot Huang Yuting added a bronze at the ISSF World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Olympic silver medalist Sheng Lihao bagged a bronze in the men's 10m air rifle competition, reports Xinhua.

The Baku leg of the World Cup is competed under the revised rules, which abandon the gold medal match and return to the format applied at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Top eight finishers in the qualification advance into the final, which consists of two series of five shots followed by 14 single shots. Eliminations of the lowest scoring finalists begin after the 12th shot and continue after every two shots until gold and silver medals are decided.

Han topped the qualification with 634.3 points, with her compatriots Huang, winner of Thursday's mixed team event, and Wang Zhilin also making it to the final.

Han and Huang led the field after two series but Nancy Nancy pushed Huang to third after 16 shots. The 19-year-old Indian overturned Han's lead before the last two shots and held a 0.1-point advantage, but Han kept her cool to shoot for a 10.7 and a 10.6 to secure her maiden World Cup title with 254.0 points, 0.7 ahead of Nancy. Huang took the bronze medal ahead of Wang.

Fresh from a mixed team gold on Thursday, Sheng looked invincible in the men's qualification, shooting for a remarkable 637.9 points, which refreshed his own world record of 635.4 points set in Bhopal, India in March, with an average of over 10.6 points.

But his top form was not stretched into the final, where a sub-par 9.9 in the 21st shot cost him a chance to make the final clash with Zalan Pekler of Hungary, who led all the way to claim the gold medal with 252.4 points. Hriday Hazarika of India took silver 0.5 points behind, and Sheng had to settle for bronze. 2014 world champion Yang Haoran of China finished fourth.

The Baku World Cup continues on Saturday with the women's 25m pistol and men's 50m rifle 3 positions golds on offer.

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