Pang Wei, the Chinese Olympic debutant, nailed down the gold medal in the men's 10-meter air pistol event with 688.2 points at the Beijing Shooting Range Hall on Saturday.

Marching into the final with a leading 586 points, the 22-year-old from north China's Hebei province had a two-point margin over joint second finalists Jin Jong Oh of South Korea and Kim Jong Su of DPR Korea.

Despite a not-so-good start of a 9.3 points, Pang impressed people with his steady performance and scored the following eight shots all above 10, including two 10.7 that aroused cheers from spectators.

After the ninth shot, he has already spanned his distance from the second-placer Jin, silver medalist at the Athens Olympics in 50-meter pistol, to 4.2 points.

Although he got another 9.3 as the last shot, his position seemed unshakable.

Kim fell to the third after his first shot and then to the fourth after the eighth shot. But he managed to hold his nerves and surpassed American shooter Jason Turner again.

It was interesting that at the Athens Olympics, Kim was bronze medalist in 50-meter pistol event. This time, positions of him and Jin were the same as in that event four years ago.

A shoot-off was held after the final to decide fourth and fifth from American shooters Turner and Brian Beaman.

Turner scored 10.5, while his teammate notched up 10.3.

Another Chinese shooter Tan Zongliang and Russian veteran Mikhail Nestruev finished as 11th and 29th in the qualification round, failing to enter the final.

(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2008)