Sheng and Huang maintained the shooting team’s tradition to get the Chinese delegation off to a flying start at the Olympics, after their senior compatriot Yang Qian won the Tokyo Games’ first gold in women’s 10m air rifle individual three years ago. Yang Qian also won the mixed team title with partner Yang Haoran in Tokyo.
The medal matches in the mixed event involve two teams starting from zero and each taking single shots by the men’s and women’s athletes in a duet format. The winning team of each round of shots earns two points, while both teams each scores one point in case of a equal round. The first team accumulates 16 points or more wins the match.
The team of Sheng and Huang won eight out of the total 14 rounds fired in the gold medal final to touch the gold first.
As the 2023 world championships winner in the mixed event, Sheng and Huang have cemented their supremacy collectively and will now shift their focus to each going for a second gold in the men’s and women’s individual rifle events.
Alexandra Le and Islam Satpayev of Kazakhstan beat German pair of Anna Janssen and Maximilian Ulbrich 17-5 in the bronze-medal final to complete the podium.
