Sheng Lihao was an unknown teenager when he took aim at the 2021 Olympic Games. All he could show in his resume was a lone outing at the 2019 Asian Championship in Doha, yet the 16-year-old stunned the shooting world with his amazing talent in Tokyo.
The silver in men’s 10m air rifle announced his arrival on the world stage, and since then Sheng has kept piling on superlative performances.
The latest in this line is reclaiming his world record en-route gold with his Feinwerkbau rifle at the ISSF World Cup in Munich.
Sheng shot a 254.5 in the finals on Monday, which was 1.2 points better than the world mark he set at the Hangzhou Asian Games last year.
Sheng’s mark was bettered by India’s Divyansh Singh Panwar with a 253.7 at the Cairo World Cup in January this year.
Sheng’s Munich show comes less than a month after the gold at the Baku World Cup, where he set the qualification world and junior world record of 637.9.
The 19-year-old now has three individual gold medals at World Cups, with the 2023 Bhopal World Cup being the other scene of triumph.
Sheng seems to be in the form of life, and if he were to continue in this vein, another high at the upcoming Paris Olympics is on the anvil.
Sheng had topped the qualification in Munich on Sunday with 635.4 to finish 0.3 ahead of India’s Arjun Babuta, who did not proceed to the final as he was competing for ranking points only (RPO).
The Chinese kept his foot on the pedal in the final, and stayed a full point clear of the field after the second competition stage before widening the gap to 3.2 points at close.
Sheng’s show in the final also qualified as a junior world record, and he can now proudly claim to be the owner of four world records.
There will be no pause as the world’s best 10m air rifle shooter will now aim for glory in Paris.