China's Pang Wei won the men's 10-meter air pistol gold at the 29th Olympic Games in Beijing on Saturday.[Xinhua]

He likes to play with toy guns when he was a little boy. But at that time, nobody had expected Pang Wei could one day become an Olympic shooting champion.

Pang Wei is name of the Chinese Olympic debutant who nailed down gold medal in men's 10-meter air pistol event with 688.2 points on Saturday.

For this success, the reticent boy said he had prepared for four years.

But those close to him know that the efforts he paid were more than that.

Born in July 1986 in the Baoding city of northern Hebei Province, Pang saw his life changed in September 2000, when, talking about his toy guns piled like in a weapon warehouse, a neighbor told him "you should practice shooting if you like guns so much".

The 14-year-old student was excited at the idea.

"If he really likes it, why not give it a try?" his parents then sent him to the amateurish sports school of Baoding.

However, they later regreted for the decision seeing their son's academic study affected, and asked him to quit.

"The boy was quite docile. He wouldn't argue with his parents but you can see his reluctance," said Pang Wei's aunt Pang Yanchun.

And the coach Zhang Guangwei told his parents, "I wouldn't oppose if other children's parents ask them to withdraw. But Pang Wei is such a talented shooter and it would be a pity if he gives up."

Therefore, Pang's parents made a bold decision, which was later proved as a correct one: to have him drop out of school and concentrate in training.

"If he couldn't compete as a shooter, at least he could become a soldier," his father Pang Yanhong thought.

His grandmother was surprised to find that the boy, who lacked patience when studying, became sober after the training. "I said to myself, with this persistence, he could achieve something."

Training every day took seven hours. To enhance stability of arms, Pang had to lift bricks for a long time. But he was among the a few who sticked to his shooter dream.

The diligent boy entered provincial team of Hebei two years later, and was accepted as the youngest member by the national shooting team as "reserve" in 2005.

His first gold medal came in 2006, when the team planned to have him compete in junior events at the World Championships, but the dark horse was crowned in men's 10m air rifle at the adult team.

The glory was so unexpected that Pang even didn't prepare uniform for the awarding ceremony. And Pang Yanhong treated it as a joke when his son called to tell him the good news.

More and more he competed, the boy became used to life like that.

"Competitions are athletes' holidays," he said.

At the Olympic Games, the boy wore ceremony uniform when competing in the final.

When asked for the reason, he said, "on the one hand, it was warm to wear it. On the other hand, I wanted to borrow some good luck from the clothes."

Apparently also joyful, Wang Yifu, head coach of the Chinese shooting squad who holds the Olympic record in Pang's discipline 10-meter air pistol, took a group photo with Pang.

"We are all glad to see the kid wins gold medal," he said fondly.

"Seeing him opening fire at the shooting range, I seemed to see the former me," added the coach.

(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2008)