Hoang Xuan Vinh may have just ended Vietnam's six-decade wait for a first Olympic gold medal on Saturday but he wasn't about to make a song and dance about his historic feat.
The 41-year-old military officer finally struck the Olympic bullseye for Vietnam to deny Brazil an opening day title at the Rio Games.
Vinh fell into the arms of his coaches after his near-perfect final shot in the men's 10m air pistol.
He duelled with Sao Paulo-born Felipe Almeida Wu who had taken the lead after the penultimate round.
The Vietnamese history-maker claimed the title with a total points haul of 202.5. Crowd favourite Wu, almost 20 years his junior, took silver only .3 adrift.
If Vinh was feeling as proud as punch at finally ending a quest for his country that first began in Helsinki in 1952, he wasn't about to show it.
"I'm very lucky, it's the first gold medal in Vietnam's history, I feel very lucky, thank you everybody," he said at a press conference.
"Making this gold medal is a life memory, never forget this. Because (it is the) first time making a gold medal for Vietnam."
Wu, Brazil's first Olympic shooting medallist since 1920, praised his uplifting home support and said he hoped his performance would boost his sport's popularity in football-mad Brazil.
On winning the 2016 hosts' first medal of these Games, he added: "There are no words to describe how happy I am. We work very hard, and everything is worth the pain. Pain on my shoulder, pain in my back, but I will forget about all this pain now."
"It is just perfect. I hope that the sport of shooting becomes more popular in Brazil. I don't know how, but I hope people get interested for this sport and start to practise, and I think that is a good thing, to win a medal. I hope it will be good for shooting."
[AFP]
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