XXXI Olympic Games · Rio de Janeiro, BRA

A memorable match closed Shooting sport’s Day-1 in Rio: Hoang wrote a new page in Vietnam’s history books by winning the country’s first ever Olympic Gold; Wu claimed Brazil’s first medal in their home Games; Pang finished on the podium three hours after his wife Du.

Hoang Xuan Vinh (41) claimed Vietnam’s first gold medal in any sport in Olympic history, when he won the 10m air pistol men event today (Saturday 6 August). The match closed a day full of drama at the Olympic Shooting Centre of Deodoro, where the first medal of the Games was assigned to USA’s Thrasher earlier today.

Hoang scored 202.5 points – writing a new Olympic record (rules have changed after London 2012 resetting all the records), and besting Brazil’s Felipe Almeida Wu (24) who secured Silver with 202.1 points.

“I think this is a huge achievement, not just for me, but for my whole country, for all the Vietnamese people. I would like to exploit this result to start teaching Shooting sport to the younger generations in Vietnam.”

Wu’s turned out to be Brazil’s first medal in their home Games in Rio de Janeiro. The 24-year old shooter started-off as the favorite, ranking first in the world as he claimed two ISSF World Cup gold medals this year in Bangkok and Baku.

"I am just happy. There are no words to describe how happy I am. We work very hard, and everything is worth the pain. Pain on my shoulder, pain in my back, but I will forget about all this pain now," said the Brazilian shooter.

The Brazilian spectators crowding the Olympic Shooting Centre finals hall in Deodoro supported him all the way through the competition, cheering out loud at every shot.

"That was very nice,” commented Wu. “This morning, I listened to them say this was not so important for shooting. But after that, I cannot say the same. It was very good energy and I am very happy for all the support."

"It is just perfect,” he added, commenting on him winning Brazil’s first Olympic medal in Rio. “I hope that the sport of shooting becomes more popular in Brazil. I hope people get interested for this sport and start to practice, and I think that is a good thing, to win a medal. I hope it will be good for shooting."

The 2008 Olympic Champion Pang Wei of the People’s Republic of China (30) won Bronze with 180.4 points. He finished upon Rio’s podium just three hours after his wife’s Du Li, who pocketed the women’s 10m Air Rifle silver earlier today.

"We just encourage each other because in the morning she finished her final a little bit sad about it, so I just want to do my match good," said Pang. “My expectation was a gold medal. I still feel happy because I work really hard to get this medal. I made some mistakes in the last part, so that is why I could not catch up."

Slovakia’s Juray Tuzinski (31) closed the match in 4^th place 159.4 points, finishing just 0.2 far from the medals. He was followed by Jin Jongoh of the Republic of Korea, the title defender, who did not shoot at his best finishing in 5^th place with 139.8 points. Jin is however one of the favorites for the men’s 50m Pistol event, which also sees him competing to defend the 2012 Olympic title. Italy’s Giuseppe Giordano, Russia’s Vladimir Gontcharov and India’s Jitu Rai closed the match in 6^th, 7^th and 8^th place with 118.4, 98.9 and 78.7 points, respectively.

The XXXI Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro will continue tomorrow with two more Shooting sport medal events: the 10 Air Pistol and the Trap Women Finals, scheduled at 11:00 and 15:00, respectively. To find out how to watch the finals in your country, follow this link: http://go.olympic.org/ISSF