China’s Yi Siling on Saturday won the first gold medal at the London 2012 Olympics which commenced on Friday, with victory in the women’s 10m air rifle at the Royal Artillery Barracks.
Yi played with Poland’s Sylwia Bogacka into second, with Yu Dan of China taking bronze.
Poland’s Bogacka was leading until the eighth attempt of the 10-shot final when a wayward effort handed Yi first place while Britain’s Jennifer McIntosh was knocked out in the qualifying round.
Yi and Bogacka had close ties with a score of 399 out of 400, Yi took the gold with an overall score of 502.9 while her competitor had 502.2
Jennifer who finished 36th out of 56 competitors in her first Olympics said “I’d have liked to be in the final, but performance-wise I felt like I handled it really well. You live and learn
With so much excitement Yi said “I have been up since five this morning. There was a lot of pressure on me. I’m very grateful to China and to my mother and father, who I love very much.”
Katerina Emmons of the Czech Republic was fourth.
