Favorites China took early charge of the Asian Games shooting competition by winning the first three gold medals on offer at the Lusail ranges yesterday.
The Chinese men won the 10m Air Rifle team event and the women added the Trap team and individual gold medals to give their rivals a taste of their expected domination over the next six days.
China is also expected to sweep the remaining three events on the opening day at the wind-swept ranges in the Qatari capital.
World No. 1 Li Chen easily won the women's Trap individual event with a tally of 89 points, nine more than the joint 80 scored by team-mate Zhu Mei and Lin Yi-chun of Taiwan.
Zhu took the silver on the tie-breaker to make it a 1-2 for the Chinese.
Disappointing
South Korea's Lee Bo-na, a gold medal contender here after winning two medals at the Athens Olympics, finished a disappointing 11th with 60 points.
"The wind created a problem but I had prepared for that well over the last two days," said Li. "It is nice to end the day with both the team and individual golds."
In the team event, Li and her compatriots scored 195 points while North Korea won the silver with 186 points and South Korea the bronze with 174 points.
China had earlier won the first gold medal of these Asian Games when they claimed the men's 10m Air Rifle team event.
Indian Bronze
South Korea won the silver and India bagged the bronze after the end of individual qualification rounds which decided the winner of the team event.
The Chinese trio of Liu Tianyou, Li Jie and Zhu Qinan finished with 1,786 points, 11 more than the second-placed Korean team of Yu Jae-chung, Chae Kean-bae and Kim Hye-sung.
India, missing World Cup champion Abhinav Bindra through a back injury, finished just one point behind the Koreans on 1,776 points.
Gagan Narang shot 595 points in his six rounds and Padinchare Raghunath came in with 592, but rookie Navanath Faratade managed only 589 to deny the Indians a silver.
"Abhinav's absence made a big difference but I am not blaming Navanath," Indian coach Sunny Thomas said. "It is his first major event and he was a bit nervous. He is human. Anyone can have a bad day."
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