Lan Xing, of the People's Republic of China, won today's 50m Rifle Prone Men final at his first try. The 23-year old shooter from Beijing had indeed never made it to a final match in this event, before.
Shooting since 2005, his best placement in the rifle prone event had been a 28th place, recorded at the last world cup stage in Munich, less than ten days ago.
In spite of the lack of experience, Lan did not hesitate today. He qualified with the eighth score, this morning. But with the new rules the final is a new phase of the competition: the scores are set back to zero, and a new game starts.
Then, Lan gave his best. While the qualifications leader Matthew Emmons (USA) was the first to leave the match placing in eighth with 82.6 points, the Chinese shooter climbed up the scoreboard to the top, gaining tenths shot after shot.
Slowly, but constantly, he nailed a series of great 10s: he shot just once in the ninth ring out of 20 finals shot, and eventually he closed the match in first with an overall score of 209.0 points, meaning an average of almost 10.5 points per shot.
Lan won his first Gold medal in this event with 2.3 points of advantage on Australia's 2008 Olympic Bronze medallist Warren Potent (Silver with 207.7 points). Potent, 52, currently ranked seventh in the world, had won his last ISSF world cup medal back in 2010, on his home turf, in Sydney.
On his way to the second step of the podium, Potent shot-off Switzerland's 42-year old finalist Marcel Buerge, leaving him the Bronze medal (186.4 points), while Odd Arne Brekne of Norway and Henri Junghaenel of Germany finished out of the podium in fifth and sixth place with 165.2 and 144.8 points, respectively. The second German finalist, Daniel Brodmeier closed the match in sixth with 123.8 points, followed by Brazil's Cassio Rippel in seventh with 103.4 points.