In a battle involving yesterday's individual men's and women's winners, it was China who emerged victorious in the mixed team trap gold medal match today in Almaty, Kazakhstan at the Asian Shotgun Cup.
Han Ting and Naser Meqlad were the respective champions individually, with the Kuwaiti Meqlad having high confidence after scoring a perfect 50 in the men's final.
He was joined by Shahad Al-Hawal, who finished fifth in the women's final - which was won emphatically by Han.
The Chinese athlete's teammate was Wang Yuhao and between them they scored 134 in qualification from a possible 150, one behind Meqlad and Al-Hawal.
Gold Medal Match
In the gold medal match, China were in front from the off, leading 9-7 after the first round of shooting. Two misses from Meqlad was unlike his heroics from the day before.
However, both Wang and Han would miss targets eight and 10 - and Kuwait would go back ahead by two thanks to a clean scorecard.
Kuwait led by two going into the final targets, but it was a round to forget for Al-Hawal who missed three, while Meqlad was unable to make a final successful shot either. With four misses, Wang and Han had to strike their final targets to claim gold - and they held their nerve to win by a score of 40-39.
Bronze Medal Matches
Japan's Michihide Tamura and Nanami Miyasaka, the highest-qualified team for the bronze medal matches, duly delivered against the team of Maryam Fadhel Abdulla Mej Sulaiti and Ismaeel Ghuloom of Bahrain.
A strong start from Japan meant that Bahrain could never get within touching distance of their opponents, despite a difficult second round of shooting for Miyasaka who missed four of her targets. It was Tamura who was clinical - missing only his last two targets after victory was secured - but the emphatic 43-34 victory would not have been possible without the second-half performance of Miyasaka.
The other bronze medal went the way of Qatar's Rashid Hamad Al-Athba and Kholoud Hassan Al-Khalaf, by a margin of 39-35 to Daniil Pochivalov and Anastassiya Prilepina from Kazakhstan. Much like Tamura before him, Al-Athba was clinical, hitting 11 targets in a row and supported well by Al-Khalaf. Pochivalov's form kept the contest close going into the final round, but the Qataris scored eight from 10, making it impossible for the Kazakhs to overhaul the deficit.