Galkina wins gold for Russia

Russia's Lioubov Galkina won the gold medal in the women's 50 metre rifle three-positions target event on Friday after setting an Olympic record for the final round.

Bouncing back from her bitter final-shot defeat last Saturday in the 10 metre air rifle competition, Galkina added the gold to the silver medal she won earlier with an outstanding final round.

Galkina fired a final 101.4, which was added to her 587 points in the qualifying round, for a total score of 688.4.

Valentina Turisini of Italy took the silver medal with a score of 685.9 points while Wang Chengyi of China won the bronze medal with a score of 685.4.

Olga Dovgun of Kazakhstan had led the field after the qualifying with a score of 588, one point ahead of Galkina. But Dovgun slipped with the worst round of any of the eight finalists, getting just 96.9 points, to end up fourth.

Galkina, 31, had just missed winning the first gold medal of the Olympics last Saturday but faltered on her final shot to end up second to China's Du Li.

On Saturday she had been nearly flawless in the qualifying round of the 10 metre event, breaking the Olympic qualifying round record. She also shot superbly in all but the last of the 10-round final.

But on Friday, Galkina finished strongly, hitting the bullseye on her five final shots to finish comfortably ahead of Turisini.

China's Wang had been second after starting the finals in fourth but slipped with weak scores below 10 on her last three shots. Turisini passed her for the silver medal on the penultimate round.