The pair duelled at the end of a competition that saw them never separated by much throughout but it was Leinonen who managed to keep her nose in front regularly hitting scores of 10.8 and 10.9 in a high quality final event.

Ristic had survived elimination after a shoot-off with Ukraine's London 2012 Paralympic champion Vasily Kovalchuk before going on a superb run, in which he shot no lower than 10.5 to sit in third place behind New Zealand's Michael Johnson and Leinonen.

Johnson had looked comfortable on second but an uncharacteristic 9.9 followed by a 10.9 from Ristic put the Serbian up into second and right on the tail of Leinonen just 0.4 behind going into the penultimate round.

But the Finnish sharp-shooter was cool under pressure and despite a 10.9 from Ristic, she finished with a 10.6 to secure a dramatic win with a total of 212.0 to Ristic's 211.9.

"I just cannot believe this," said a delighted Leinonen, who claimed gold in this event at the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games.

"I just kept my routine, so I knew exactly what to do on my last shot, so I just concentrated on that and it was enough.

"When you train enough, you just learn to listen to your thoughts and concentrate on one shot at a time.

"Then the results come.

"When the crowd was screaming, I just waited for a little moment before concentrating again."

In the team ranking event, there was another gold medal for South Korea, as they scored an impressive 1900.5.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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