Free Pistol (50 metres), Men

Jin Jong-O came into London as the defending champion in the free pistol, and he had already won a gold medal in London in the air pistol. In this event he had a close battle with his teammate Choi Yeong-Rae, defeating him on the final shot to repeat as gold medalist. Choi had the led the qualifiers, taking a three-point lead into the final. On the final shot, Jin scored 10.2 to Choi’s 8.1 to win by ½-a-point. This made Korea the first nation since the Soviet Union in 1960 to go 1-2 in this event.

Jin’s victory was historic in a number of ways. Most importantly, this made Jin the first shooter to ever win three individual gold medals in Olympic shooting. He also became the first shooter to win two gold medals at one Olympics since Unified Team shooter Marina Dobrancheva-Logvinenko in 1992, and only the second shooter to do so since 1924, back when there were numerous team events. In fact, Jin became only the seventh shooter to win two individual gold medals at one Olympics, following Dobrancheva-Logvinenko and five shooters from 1906-20. This was also his third consecutive medal in the event, as he had also won a silver in 2004.

The world #1 seed Damir Mikec of Serbia placed only 16th in qualifying, after a disappointing 90 in his second series. Five shooters tied for eighth in qualifying and had to shoot-off for the finals, which was won by Italian Giuseppe Giordano with 49.6. Losing out were the 2008 bronze medalist Vladimir Isakov of Russia and world #2 ranked Tomoyuki Matsuda of Japan.