TIANJIN, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Old soldiers never die; they don't fade away, either! China's veteran shooter Tan Zongliang surpassed both his much younger rivals and the world record to be crowned in the men's 10m air pistol of the 13th National Games here on Wednesday.
The 45-year-old, a five times Olympian, recovered from a disappointing fifth finish in the men's 50m pistol two days ago, and denied a worse start to win the 10m air pistol final with 242.3 points.
The current world record of 241.6 points was set by Christian Reitz of Germany on March 10, 2017 at the European Shooting Championship in Maribor of Slovenia.
Tan, who's in his seventh participation of the quadrennial multi-sport event, dubbed as China's mini-Olympics, had previously won two gold medals from the 7th and 10th Games respectively.
"I have never dared to think about another gold and the record," said Tan, a Shandong native, who fired a quite low 8.7-point shot at the beginning but came from behind to nail the gold after 10 shots.
"I am lucky, but I must say that the gold medal mainly came as my inner power," he added.
Besides the record and the title, Tan also won respect from his younger rivals, as the event's silver medalist Wang Zhiwei, representing Shanxi province, said after the final that "the best thing today is Big Brother Tan winning."
Another comeback featured in the women's 25m pistol event where Ji Xiaojing of Qinghai bounced back from a 6th place in the qualifier to claim the gold with 35 hits.
Xiong Yaxuan of Jiangxi also rallied from 8th place of the qualifier to take the silver medal with 32 hits, beating the current world No. 1 Zhang Jingjing from Fujian to the third place by four hits.
Rio Olympic champion Zhang Mengxue even missed the second series, and only finished sixth in the women's 25m pistol final.
The men's 50m rifle prone title went to Li Jiahong of Heilongjiang with an advantage of 0.3 points over runner-up Liu Yukun of Shaanxi. Kang Hongwei from Zhejiang won the bronze with 228.8 points.
In the track cycling team pursuit event, Rio Olympic champion Zhong Tianshi suffered a major blow, finishing just the third though partnering with another established Shanghai cyclist Guo Shuang.
"Zhong's waist injury was still a big problem to her," commented her coach Tang Qi. "We're all satisfied with the bronze since there's only 70 percent out of Zhong because of the injury."
Earlier on Wednesday, Olympic fourth placer Zu Lijun retained the title in the men's 10km marathon swimming, beating local favorite An Jiabao by 0.19 seconds in a breath-taking final sprint.
Both Zu and An exchanged the lead over the 10km open water competition which featured 40 swimmers, and it was Zu who touched the pad first in one hour 56 minutes and 32.64 seconds. Liu Jiashu of Guangdong came third 1:56.40.27.
Since he turned from pool to open water in 2006, Zu, 28, has dominated most of the nation's open water meets.
"My dream is to win a medal for China at the international event, though I am not that young now. I want to compete in more international meets and FINA events. I wish open water swimming race can be more popular in China," Zu said.
Other finals were completed in the women's water-polo, the men's under-18 basketball, fencing, trampoline, sailing, rowing, weightlifting and Wushu, with 26 gold medals on offer in the day-3 competitions at the National Games.
