Azernews.Az

World no.2 Andrea Arsovic recovered her nerve for the final shot of the women's 10m air rifle final to claim European Games gold by the slimmest of margins from Swiss teenager Sarah Hornung. Germany's Barbara Engleder took bronze.

Arsovic appeared unnerved by the clapping that started before each of the final four rounds of shots at the Baku Shooting Centre, scoring 9.8, 9.9 and 10.2 for her 17th, 18th and 19th shots respectively. By comparison, Hornung shot 10.5, 10.7 and 10.7.

The Serb's sudden dip presented the world junior champion a window of opportunity, and Hornung pulled back a 2.0 deficit to level the scores at the final shot.

"I didn't even really look at the score at that time," Hornung said afterwards. "I wasn't sure what I needed to win the gold, I just had my head down and concentrated and did my best."

Arsovic revelaed that it was not the clapping that had affected her, but a glimpse of the score. "I saw the scoreboard for the first time and that I was in first position, and from that moment it was very bad for my concentration," she said.

But the first ever women's European Games 10m champion regrouped to fire a 10.5 to Hornung's 10.4 to claim gold.

Hornung's effort also earned Switzerland a quota place at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

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