North Korea picked up its first gold medal of the 19th Asian Games in shooting on Thursday.

North Korea finished first in the women's 10-meter running target team event at Fuyang Yinhu Sports Centre in Hangzhou, as the trio of Ri Ji-hye, Paek Ok-sim and Pang Myong-hyang combined for 1,655 points.

Kazakhstan took silver with 1,642 points and Indonesia earned bronze with 1,604 points.

In the running target event, shooters each fired 60 shots with the targets moving from left to right, or right to left, for a maximum 600 points. They took 30 precision-fire shots with a time limit of five seconds per shot, and 30 rapid-fire shots fired with a time limit of 2.5 seconds per shot.

The individual and team competitions ran simultaneously, as the individual scores were added for each country to determine the team rankings.

For North Korea, Ri won the individual silver medal with 554 points, and Paek got bronze with 551 points. Pang finished in fourth place with 550 points.

Zukhra Irnazarova of Kazakhstan denied North Korea a podium sweep, as she claimed gold with 560 points.

North Korea entered Thursday with two silver medals for the competition, both of them coming from shooting. Kwon Kwang-il won silver in the men's 10m running target mixed run event, and he joined Pak Myong-won and Yu Song-jun for silver in the men's 10m running target team event.

This Asiad is North Korea's first appearance at an international multisport competition since the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia. The reclusive state skipped the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021, citing COVID-19 concerns, and was subsequently banned by the International Olympic Committee from competing at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

The suspension ended at the end of last year, allowing North Korea to participate in the Hangzhou Asiad, which was postponed by one year because of COVID-19 concerns.

Source: Yonhap News Agency