At the Barcelona 1992 Games China’s Zhang Shan became the first woman to earn an Olympic shooting sport gold medal in mixed competition. She won the skeet event in an Olympic record of 223, with Juan Giha of Peru and Italy’s Bruno Rossetti taking respective silver and bronze one shot behind.
Zhang, 24, had also set an Olympic record en route after hitting all 200 of her qualification targets.
The skeet event had first been included on the Olympic programme at the Mexico 1968 Games and was open to men and women.
Mixed individual competitions were no longer a part of the Games four years later in Atlanta.
Zhang, born in the Sichuan Province, had taken up shotgun aged 16 and her promise was evident within the space of a year
In 1989, the 21-year-old Zhang won the Shotgun World Championship titles in both the single and team skeet events.
Of the 60 competitors involved in the 1992 Olympic skeet competition, seven were women.
In the qualification round, Zhang hit all 150 targets and became the only female competitor to advance to the 24-strong semi-final.
There she repeated her perfect score by hitting 200 targets, breaking the Olympic record and equalling the world record mark.
She went into the final leading by two, and even though she missed two efforts from her 25, a score of 23 was enough to see her to the top spot ahead of four men one hit behind her.
Speaking to CNN two years later, Zhang recalled: “At that time, I was no longer me, just like a machine running freely according to its preset programme.”
During the medal ceremony, Zhang was lifted into the air by the silver and bronze medallists.
After the change in the rules by ISSF which prevented women from shooting against men skeet remained on the Olympic programme, but only for male athletes.
Zhang temporarily retired from shooting and continued her studies at Sichuan University. However, when the IOC announced the women’s skeet event would be on the Sydney 2000 programme she began training again.
She became the first athlete on the Chinese National Shooting Team to secure a place at the Sydney 2000 Olympics by winning the women’s skeet title at the 1998 Cairo Shooting World Cup.
Zhang finished eighth in qualifying, narrowly missing a place in the final, and four years later her attempt to qualify for the Athens 2004 Games was unsuccessful.
Looking back at the ups and downs of her career, Zhang told CCTV: “I love shooting, so I can accept everything that this sport has brought me.”
She continued in the sport after 2004, and with success. At the 2007 Shotgun World Championship she earned gold in the team skeet event, breaking the world record.
At the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, Zhang, then 42, won the team skeet gold medal.
Her last major competition was the XIII National Games, where she won a silver medal aged 49.
She once jokingly said: “If there is an old lady on the skeet range, it must be me. Skeet shooting has been carved into my life. It may reach the last day of my life. Shooting has changed everything for me.
“I love this sport. I don't think I can leave it in my lifetime.”