Zhang backs young team to win gold

PARIS: Chinese shooters are desperate to win the team’s first gold medal in Paris and their first gold in the skeet event in over 30 years, former Olympic champion Zhang Shan said.

The 10-metre air rifle mixed team event is among the first gold medal events in Paris scheduled for Saturday morning. “The Chinese team is very competitive in the event and I really hope our young athletes will win the gold,” Zhang told Reuters on Wednesday at a sponsor’s event. Chinese shooters have claimed their country’s first gold of the Games more times than athletes in any other sport.

Shooter Xu Haifeng won China’s first ever Olympic gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, when the country was finally welcomed into the Games fold. China is sending two pairs to compete in the mixed team event including 17-year-old Huang Yuting and 19-year-old Sheng Lihao who won the world cup title this year and the 2023 world championship. “This Olympics we’ve got these kids in charge...I believe they are well prepared to fight for the first gold,” said Zhang.

Zhang, 56, claimed the gold medal in the skeet shooting event 32 years ago in Barcelona - the first and last woman to win the event which at the time was also open to men. The International Shooting Union consequently barred women from the 1996 Atlanta Games before a competition for women only was introduced in Sydney four years later.