Niccolo Campriani.

Italy's Niccolo Campriani won gold in the Olympic men's 10-meter air rifle yesterday with a score of 206.1 points after Serihy Kulish of Ukraine made a poor final shot, widening what had been a razor-thin gap between the two.

Campriani, a 28-year-old, three-time Olympian and 2012 silver medalist, established an Olympic record of 630.2 in the qualifying round and his competition score also now qualifies as an Olympic record. There had not been a comparable previous record due to a rule change.

Kulish, 23, shot a 204.6 in the final round of his second Olympic appearance and took silver.

Russia's Vladimir Maslennikov, 21, took bronze on his Olympic debut with a score of 184.2.

India's Abhinav Bindra, a 33-year-old who in 2008 became the only individual athlete from his nation to win gold, took fourth with 163.8 after losing a shoot-off with Kulish after the pair exited the seventh round tied.

Earlier, London 2012 champion Alin George Moldoveanu misfired badly in qualifying to miss out on the defense of his title.

Romania's Olympic titleholder crashed out in qualifying, trailing in 19th at the Deodoro range outside Rio.

Another star name to fail to make the top eight, who went through to the final, was China's Cao Yifei.

The world champion's hopes were scuppered with a wayward final shot which left him slipping out of the short list to ninth.

Two who did make the cut were Bindra, the 2008 Beijing gold medalist, and Hungarian world record holder Peter Sidi.

The 10-meter air rifle was to be followed by the men's trap final later in the day.

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