Tang Xiao won the women's 10-meter air pistol gold medal for Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region at the 15th National Games of China in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, on Thursday.

The final began with two rounds of five shots after which the shooter in last place was eliminated every two shots. Hubei's Ruan Mengying took the lead first ahead of Guizhou's Qian Wei and Tokyo Olympics mixed team winner Jiang Ranxin of Shanghai.

In the elimination stage, Qian, Jiang and Ruan all fired off-target at one point and Tang took that opportunity. Her previous best result was coming second in the air pistol mixed team competition at the National Shooting Championships in 2019. Tang went one better at her first National Games by scoring 9.6 points with her final shot to win gold for Guangxi with a total of 240.3 points. Ruan settled for silver and Jiang came third.

"Actually, we all did not perform well during the competition," Tang said. "I was very lucky. I did not think too much. I took some deep breath on the field to overcome my distracting thoughts. But I took the shots decisively. This is the best final in all my years of competing. And I did not make big mistakes."

In other action, Wang Zifei staged a late comeback to overtake Zheijiang teammate Han Jiayu in the final of the women's 50-meter rifle three positions to win her second title at these Games.

The 18-year-old is a triple World Cup winner in the 10-meter air rifle this season and surged from seventh to first before sealing victory with a total of 462.9 points. Han led for much of the contest but ultimately had to settle for silver with 462.6 points. Beijing's Li Ya'nan earnd bronze to win her team's first shooting medal at the program.

Elsewhere in the men's 10-meter air pistol team final, six-time World Cup winner Hu Kai bounced back from missing out the individual podium and led his Anhui side to a 16-6 victory over Hebei. In the bronze medal match, Jilin survived a late scare to edge Guizhou 16-10, who were led by Olympic champion Xie Yu.