Paris Olympics 2024: China's Liu Yukun secures gold in men's 50m Rifle 3P event

The 28-year-old scored 463.6 in the final and won by a slim margin.

China’s Liu Yukun competes with the word LUCKY emblazoned on one leg of his shooting outfit – but there was nothing lucky about the way this 27-year-old showman earned Olympic 50m rifle 3 positions gold in his first summer games appearance at Paris Olympics 2024.

Liu Yukun, who broke the world record twice in two days at the Baku World Cup in May, had his flag-waving followers on their feet in the stands at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre with another masterly display in a final where Ukraine’s 31-year-old Serrhiy Kulish added a second silver to the one he had won at Rio 2016 and India’s 28-year-old Swapnil Kusale took a joyful bronze.

With just three shots remaining in the standing elimination section the ebullient Chinese athlete trailed Kulish by 0.03 after managing only 9.7 to his rival’s 9.9.

But his next two shots defined his Olympic competition and his Olympian talent. While Kulish slipped to a 9.1 as the pressure told, he scored 10.2 to move into a 0.8 lead.

In the next round he achieved perfection with a 10.9, extending his lead to a more than solid 1.8 as Kulish scored 9.9, with Kusale, despite a 10.0, leaving in bronze medal position after finishing 0.5 behind the Ukrainian.

Also Read: Paris Olympics 2024: Swapnil Kusale fights back to win bronze medal in 50m rifle 3 position

There was no extravagant final flourish for Liu Yukun as he scored 9.9, but he was able to extend his lead still further as Kulish concluded with a 9.4, reaching a winning total of 463.6 as the Ukrainian won silver on 461.3.

The first two sections, kneeling and prone, were won by Norway’s 25-year-old European champion Jon-Hermann Hegg, who missed a medal in this event by one place at the Tokyo 2020 Games.

He led from Liu Yukun after the kneeling section with a score of 155.3 to 154, and by the end of the prone section the he was still ahead on 312.1 although his lead had been cut by his Chinese rival, who had reached 311.5, with Kulish on 311.1 and Czechia’s 23-year-old Jiri Privratsky on 311.0.

But Hegg’s star began to fall in the standing section and concluding efforts of 9.8 and 9.9 saw him make his exit in fifth place.

By then three others had departed – Serbia’s 26-year-old Lazar Kovacevic, 26, the 2023 World Cup Final silver medallist, who was the first of the eight finalists to leave and was followed by Poland’s 34-year-old Tomasz Bartnik, a Tokyo 2020 Olympian who won the world title in 2018, and then 23-year-old home athlete Lucas Kryzs, the 2023 World Cup Final champion.

In his first Olympics Privratsky, who began the year as world record holder, had the unhappy experience of finishing fourth, although his supporters were swift to mark his achievement.

He arrived in the single-shot elimination stages trailing Kusale by 2.2, and despite scoring 10.4, 10.5 and 10.3 he could not make up the difference as his Indian rival produced efforts of 10.5, 9.4 and 9.9.

The celebrations were loud and long too for Kusale after he had earned India’s third bronze in the Paris 2024 shooting sport programme following the earlier successes of Manu Bhaker in the 10m air pistol women’s final and the 10m air pistols mixed team event with Sarabjot Singh.

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