Park Ha-jun of South Korea poses with his silver medal won in the men's individual 10-meter air rifle shooting event at the Asian Games at Fuyang Yinhu Sports Centre in Hangzhou, China, Sept. 25. Yonhap

Korean shooter Park Ha-jun was on target for the silver medal in the men's individual 10-meter air rifle event at the Asian Games in China on Monday.

Park scored 251.3 points for his second medal Monday at Fuyang Yinhu Sports Centre in Hangzhou. The 23-year-old is the first South Korean medalist in the men's individual 10m air rifle since the 2010 bronze medalist Kim Ki-won.

Sheng Lihao of China won the gold with 253.3 points. Park edged out Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar of India, who finished with 228.8 points.

"I am a little bummed that I didn't win the gold," Park said. "But since this was only my first Asian Games, I think I should be able to grab gold in my next try."

Earlier in the day, Park joined Kim Sang-do and Nam Tae-yun for the team silver medal in the 10m air rifle with 1,890.1 points. It was South Korea's first medal in shooting in Hangzhou.

The team standings were determined by the combined scores of individual shooters in their qualification phase. Park was the second-ranked qualifier with 632.8 points, while Kim and Nam chipped in 629.1 points and 628.2 points, respectively.

In the individual final, where shooters started from zero, two series of five shots were fired at first, with athletes given 250 seconds per series.

Park was in first place after the first series with 53.4 points, scoring the maximum 10.9 points with his fifth and final shot of that series. He was 1.2 points ahead of Sheng.

But Park stumbled in the second series, shooting a 10.0 and a pair of 10.2s to fall 0.4 point behind Sheng at 104.9 points.

Park Ha-jun of South Korea competes in the final of the men's individual 10-meter air rifle shooting event at the Asian Games at Fuyang Yinhu Sports Centre in Hangzhou, China, Sept. 25. Yonhap

Sheng never lost his lead over Park the rest of the way.

The two series of shots was followed by 14 single shots, fired on command with 50 seconds given for each shot.

Eliminations of the lowest-scoring shooter began after the 10th shot ― the series and then the first two single shots ― and continued on after every two shots.

Following the 12th and the 14th shots, shooters with the lowest scores were eliminated, and ended up in eighth and seventh place, respectively.

Park and Sheng were the last two men standing, but with two shots to go, Sheng enjoyed a comfortable 1.8-point lead over the South Korean.

Park hit 10.4s with his final two shots to take the silver.

"I was a bit nervous after the first series because I was in first place," Park said. "I had to stay steady and calm to shoot high scores, but I got carried away a bit because I did so well in the first series."

Park admitted he was a bit overwhelmed by the magnitude of the event but he tried to soak it all up as he gears for the next big event, the Olympic Games in Paris next summer.

"I am not going to take time off after this season," he said. "When other athletes take a break, I am going to keep training hard and putting in the work." (Yonhap)