Home shooters earn one gold, one silver at ISSF World Cup in Ningbo

Chinese athletes bagged one gold medal and one silver at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup at home in Ningbo, east China's Zhejiang Province, on Tuesday.

Yao Qianxun and Hu Kai reached the 10-meter air pistol mixed team final with a qualification-leading 585 points, four above Veronika Schejbalova and Jindrich Dubovy of the Czech Republic.

The gold medal battle was tied at 3 until the Chinese pair built a 9-3 advantage. Though Schejbalova and Dubovy called a timeout and then rallied with 10.3 and 10.6 points, they couldn't stop Yao and Hu from sealing the deal 17-5.

"It's an honor to win the first gold medal of this World Cup on home soil. There's still a long way ahead, so we must keep pushing forward and working hard," said Hu, who averaged 10.1 points in the final.

The bronze went to Veronika Major and Akos Karoly Nagy of Hungary after they defeated neutral athletes Iana Enina and Anton Aristarkhov 17-13.

Another home pair, Sheng Lihao and Peng Xinlu broke the qualification world record in the 10m air rifle mixed team event with 636.9 points after surpassing the previous record of 635.9 set by Sheng and Wang Zifei at the Munich World Cup in June.

However, Sheng and Peng failed to repeat their incredible performance in the final against Jeanette Hegg Duestad and Jon-Hremann Hegg of Norway. The Chinese duo trailed 7-1 from the beginning. Though they managed to tie the competition at 7 after a timeout, the Norwegians pulled away to win the match 17-9.

"It was a really interesting final. It's always hard to shoot against the Chinese but it's just even more fun," Duestad said after the match. "We really enjoyed the final today and we have some new tactics that we're trying, so it seemed to be fun."

"Since this was my first time participating, there were still many shortcomings," Peng said after earning a silver at her World Cup. "I'll continue to learn from 'brother Hao' and other teammates and make up for my weaknesses."

Carlotta Salafia and Danilo Dennis Sollazzo of Italy defeated Marta Zeljkovic and Petar Gorsa of Croatia 16-4 to take the bronze.