Manfred Kurzer of Germany took gold yesterday in the last Olympic men's 10 metre running target event with a score of 682.4 despite a poor performance in the final.

The competition is one of two shooting events to be dropped from the Olympic programme after Athens as part of efforts to trim the size of the Games.

Alexander Blinov of Russia took silver and his compatriot Dimitri Lykin won bronze.

Kurzer's world record qualifying score of 590, which is added to the score in the final for the overall total, proved enough of a cushion to keep him in first place. But his score in the final of 92.4 was the lowest among the six competitors.

Meanwhile, Diana Igaly of Hungary took gold in the women's skeet shooting event with a flawless performance in the final.

The Budapest bookbinder hit every one of the 25 flying bright orange targets to win with an overall score of 97, including her total of 72 from the qualifying round.

Roared on by a large Hungarian contingent in the crowd at the hilltop shooting centre outside Athens, Igaly was never seriously threatened by her rivals.

China's Wei Ning won silver after a shoot-off with Zemfira Meftakhetdinova of Azerbaijan, who won bronze.