Like famous Chinese sharpshooter Wang Yifu who attended six Olympic Games with two gold medals, markswoman Jasna Sekaric is equally widely known in her country Serbia.

Jasna Sekaric

Sekaric added a new glory to her nation on Wednesday, when the 42-year-old lady in black won the first gold medal at the Good Luck Beijing ISSF World Cup in women's 25-meter pistol with 784.4 points.

Runner-up in 10-meter air pistol at the Sydney Olympic Games, Sekaric topped in the qualification round with 585 points and performed stably throughout the final round with 50.5, 50.0, 49.8 and 49.1 points.

Miraculously, however, 33-year-old French shooter Stephanie Tirode who, despite a three-point gap from her Serbian counterpart after the qualification round, appeared sharp to achieve the highest final round score of 202.4 and caught up.

In the five-shot shoot-off series, Tirode followed so closely that after the fourth shot, Sekaric only enjoyed an slim advantage of 0.4 point.

When it came to the breathtaking last shot, the Serbian collected a 10.4.

Tirode got a higher score of 10.6, which, however, was not high enough to topple Sekaric's position.

"Everybody can see I am very happy today as I won here especially in the Olympic venue," smiled the champion.

Sekaric started shooting pistol in the end of 1983, and her training was only disturbed by her pregnancy and the bombing in her former country Yugoslavia. She was chosen the world's best female shooter of the year in 1990, 1994 and 2005.

A mother of a ten-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy, she said her family gave her great support. "I didn't change my training schedule after being a mother," she said contentedly, "They (the kids) are not young any more...so I can have training every day."

But lately, she was not in good shape and hadn 't been able to take a medal since last year.

Preparation was not sufficient this time as well, as Sekaric said "I had most of my training in winter at home and just began training for sport pistol several days ago."

This victory boosted the shooter's confidence.Like other athletes, Sekaric pinned hope to the Beijing Olympics.

"When competing, I was trying to think it an Olympic final today," said the athlete, "The final today gives me more chances to get to know what the final hall is like. I do hope to get more points and better performance in the Olympics."

Aparently joyful in the new shooting range, the smiling Serbian said her first impression was "Wow, it's so big". And a few days later, "I adored it so much".

(Xinhua News Agency April 17, 2008)