McPhail triumphed once again in the men's 50 metre rifle prone event, while China’s Pang Wei was victorious in the men's 50m pistol event.

McPhail, 19th at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, was defending the title he had won last year in Munich. 

His final score of 209.1 points was enough to defeat Denmark’s Torben Grimmel, the 2000 Olympic silver medallist, who dominated this year’s World Cup series by winning three of the four events. 

Grimmel scored 208.5 points today, claiming silver ahead of Matthew Emmons of the US, who won the bronze with 187.2 points.

"For me the 2016 season has been kind of bitter-sweet," McPhail said.

"It’s good to win this title, but this is an Olympic year.

"At the Games, in prone shooting, there’s only one guy who’s happy, for everybody else it’s a disappointment.

"You train for that one match, and it doesn’t really matter if you win everything else."

Earlier in the day, Wei secured the first gold medal of the competition.

It was the fifth consecutive year a Chinese shooter had won this title following Zhang Bowen in 2015, Wang Zhiwei in 2014 and 2013 and Zhang Tian in 2012.

Pang, ranked fifth in the world, scored 190.6 points today to narrowly beat India’s Jitu Rai by 1.8 points.

Rai scored 188.8 points to win the first World Cup medal of his career.

Italy's Giuseppe Giordano supported by the home crowd, took the bronze medal with a score of 170.3 points.

Proceedings had been officially opened with the Opening Ceremony yesterday. 

A total of 99 athletes from 34 countries are competing in the event. 

The event is due to continue tomorrow with two medal events, the women's 25m pistol and the men's 25m rapid fire pistol finals.