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The first gold medals at the Paris Olympics were won by two teenagers.
Huang Yuting, 17, and Sheng Lihao, 19, added to China’s storied history of shooting success by beating South Korea’s Park Haejun and Kim Jihyun 16-12 in the 10-meter air rifle mixed team gold medal match on Saturday morning.
The South Korean team rallied from a 14-8 deficit and had a chance to tie the score in the 14th round, but Yu Ting and Li Hao fought back with the highest scores of the match in the final round, winning both available points to secure the victory.
The gold medal win for the Chinese duo at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre came as no surprise: Yu Ting and Li Hao have been teaming up throughout this Olympic season and won comfortably 16-2 in the gold medal match at last year’s world championships.
Kazakhstan’s Alexandra Le and Islam Satpayev beat Germany’s top team 17-5 in the bronze medal match on Saturday to secure the final spot on the podium, giving Kazakhstan its first Olympic shooting medal in 28 years.
Three years ago in Tokyo, Americans Mary Carolyn Tucker and Lukas Kozeniewski won silver in the 10-meter mixed air rifle event, but the Americans came nowhere close to repeating that result this time: Tucker and new partner Rylan William Kissel placed 13th in Saturday morning’s heats, while Ivan Lo and Sagen Maddalena could only manage 18th.
Twelve more gold medals will be awarded on Saturday, the first day of competition at the Paris Olympics, with the most anticipated event being the women’s 400-meter freestyle final, in which American Katie Ledecky will face rivals Summer McIntosh of Canada and Ariarne Titmuss of Australia.
