South Korean teen Ban Hyojin wins Olympic shooting gold by 0.1

CHATEAUROUX, France -- Sixteen-year-old South Korean shooter Ban Hyojin found out just how fine the winning margin in her sport can be as she won a gold medal by one-tenth of a point Monday.

Ban beat China's Huang Yuting, who is only one year older, to the gold medal by 0.1 in a shoot-off after they were each tied with 251.8 points from 22 shots, a score that had given both an Olympic record.

When she realized she had won the gold, Ban looked up to the ceiling and took a deep breath before securing her rifle. She seemed to be shaking with emotion as she hugged her coach and wiped away tears while posing with her fellow medalists.

"At this young age, I felt a lot of pressure coming to France without my family and being alone," she said. "But after the match, I saw my fellow countrypeople cheering for me and I felt like 'finally.'"

Ban might have thought she had thrown the gold medal away after having a comparatively comfortable lead of 1.3 points with two shots to go. All but one of her shots until then had scored at least 10 points of a possible 10.9, but she shot 9.9 and 9.6 to allow Huang to close the gap and force the one-shot shoot-off. Ban scored 10.4 to Huang's 10.3.

Huang earned her second medal of the Paris Games after she and teammate Sheng Lihao won gold in the 10-meter mixed team air rifle Saturday, the first gold medal awarded in any sport at the 2024 Olympics.

Switzerland's Audrey Gogniat took the bronze medal Monday when she was eliminated with 230.3 points. Sagen Maddalena was fourth for the United States, which has yet to win a shooting medal at the 2024 Olympics.

Sheng won his second gold of the Paris Games and China's third in shooting with victory in the men's 10-meter air rifle. Sheng set an Olympic-record score of 252.02 to beat Sweden's Victor Lindgren by 0.8 in the final. Bronze went to Miran Maricic of Croatia.

Sheng became the first athlete in any sport to win two gold medals at the 2024 Olympics.