Rifle shooter Lee Yun-ri grabs silver for S. Korea's 1st medal at Paris Paralympics

Rifle shooter Lee Yun-ri won silver in the women's 10-meter air rifle standing event Friday for South Korea's first medal of the Paris Paralympics.

Lee finished in second place with 246.8 points at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre in Chateauroux, south of Paris.

Avani Lekhara of India won the gold medal with 249.7 points, and Mona Agarwal of India won bronze with 228.7 points.

Lee led Lekhara by 0.8 point with one shot remaining but hit a 6.8 to hand the gold medal to the Indian athlete.

This event had SH1 classification, meaning that athletes could support the weight of the rifle with their arms and shoot in a standing position.

In the final, two series of five shots were fired at first, with the perfect score being 10.9, and Lee took the lead with 104.2 points.

Those 10 shots were followed by single shots. Eliminations of the lowest-scoring finalists started after the 12th shot and continued for every two shots until two shooters were left standing to battle for the gold.

Through 22 shots, Lee and Lekhara were tied at 229.3 points. Then with her penultimate shot, Lee hit a 10.7 to Lekhara's 9.9.

Lekhara then scored a 10.5 with her final shot. Lee only needed to hit a 9.8 for the gold and her worst score in the final up to that point had been 10.0.

But Lee only managed a 6.8 to settle for the silver.

Some fans clapped before Lee pulled her trigger for her final shot, but Lee denied she was distracted by the noise. Instead, she blamed the low score on an untimely stiffening of her right knee.

"I fed off the energy of the crowd, and I was able to enjoy the competition because of these fans," Lee said. "My right knee stiffened at the end. Back at the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics, I shot a zero because of this condition. At least I still got the silver medal because my leg stiffened at the end."

This is Lee's fifth Paralympics. She won gold in the women's 50m rifle 3 positions event in 2008 in Beijing, and added bronze in the same event eight years later in Rio de Janeiro.

Lee missed the podium in Tokyo three years ago.

"Since I already have a gold medal and a bronze medal, I thought I'd be happy with a silver medal here," Lee said. "And when my knee stiffened, I wasn't disappointed. I was just happy I had accomplished my goal."

Lee will compete in her main event, 50m rifle 3 positions, on Tuesday.

"I will try to win a gold medal there and put our national flag at the very top," she said. (Yonhap)