Russia's Lioubov Galkina won the gold medal in the women's 50-metre rifle three-positions target event today after setting an Olympic record for the final round.
Bouncing back from her bitter final-shot defeat last Saturday in the 10-metre air rifle competition, Galkina added the gold to the silver medal she won earlier with an outstanding final round.
Galkina fired a final 101.4, which was added to her 587 points in the qualifying round, for a total score of 688.4.
Valentina Turisini of Italy took the silver medal with a score of 685.9 points while Wang Chengyi of China won the bronze medal with a score of 685.4.
Olga Dovgun of Kazakhstan had led the field after the qualifying with a score of 588, one point ahead of Galkina, but slipped with the worst round of any of the eight finalists, getting just 96.9 points, to end up fourth.
Galkina, 31, had just missed out on winning the first gold medal of the Olympics last Saturday but faltered on her final shot to end up second to China's Du Li.
On Saturday she had been nearly flawless in the qualifying round of the 10-metre event, breaking the Olympic qualifying round record. She also shot superbly in all but the last of the 10-round final.
But on Friday, Galkina finished strongly, hitting the bullseye on her five final shots to finish comfortably ahead of Turisini.
The Russian admitted afterwards that she came to the Olympics expecting to do well.
"I came to Athens confident that I was going to win medals in both events," she said. "I didn't fear any opponents during the final, only myself."
Galkina also claimed she had come to terms with missing out on gold last Saturday.
"Honestly, I don't know why that happened and what could be done to avoid repeating that.
"If I knew what I had to do to improve my performance on Saturday I would have done it. I'm very happy with the gold medal."
Filed by Séamus Leonard
