CHÂTEAUROUX, France — Teenage South Korea shooter Ban Hyojin found out just how fine the winning margin in her sport can be as she won an Olympic gold medal by one-tenth of a point on Monday.
The 16-year-old Ban beat 17-year-old Huang Yuting of China to the gold medal by 0.1 in a shoot-off after they were tied on 251.8 points from 22 shots, a score that had given both an Olympic record.
When she realized she'd won the gold, Ban looked up to the ceiling and took a deep breath before securing her rifle. She seemed to be shaking with emotion as she hugged her coach and wiped away tears while posing with her fellow medalists.
“At this young age, I felt a lot of pressure coming to France without my family and being alone," she said. "But after the match I saw my fellow countrypeople cheering for me and I felt like ‘finally.’"
Ban might have felt like she'd lost the gold medal after having a comparatively comfortable lead of 1.3 points with two shots to go. All but one of her shots until then had scored at least 10 points of a possible 10.9, but she then shot 9.9 and 9.6 to allow Huang to close the gap and force the tiebreaker shoot-off. Ban scored 10.4 to win that to Huang's 10.3.
Huang won her second medal of the Paris Games after she and teammate Sheng Lihao won the 10-meter mixed team air rifle on Saturday, the first gold medal awarded in any sport at the 2024 Olympics.
Switzerland's Audrey Gogniat took the bronze medal Monday when she was eliminated on 230.3. Sagen Maddalena was fourth for the United States, which is yet to win a shooting medal in the competition.
Sheng won his second gold of the Paris Games and China's third in shooting with victory in the men's 10-meter air rifle. Sheng set an Olympic-record score of 252.02 to beat Sweden's Victor Lindgren by .8 of a point in the final. Bronze went to Miran Maricic of Croatia.
Sheng became the first athlete in any sport to win two gold medals at the 2024 Olympics.
