Gundegmaa Otryad of Mongolia took the silver and Germany's Mongolian import Munkhbayar Dorjsuren claimed the bronze medal.

Maria Grozdeva of Bulgaria, who won golds at the last two Olympics in Sydney and Athens, finished fifth among eight finalists.

Chen, the hot favourite after winning the world championship title in Croatia in 2006, came in with 793.4 points to surpass by two Grozdeva's previous Olympic record set in Sydney.

Chen went into the final a massive five points behind Otryad, but held her nerve to shoot 208.4 points in the title round while the Mongolian managed only 202.2.

'I knew I was behind at the start but I went through a similar thing in the past and knew I could do it if I took every shot calmly,' said Chen, a 30-year-old Beijing resident.

'But the biggest factor in my victory was the support I received from the crowd. When I took my shot, they went silent and then cheered me if I did well.'

Asked how she felt to win her first Olympic gold, Chen said: 'To others, this might be supreme glory, but I took it as just another competition.'

Dorjsuren, who won a bronze for Mongolia in the 1992 Barcelona Games, achieved the same result while competing for Germany, where she migrated in 2002 to live with her partner Matthias Hahn.

Thailand's Tanyaporn Prucksakorn, competing in her first Olympics aged 18, finished a creditable seventh.

With nine of the 15 shooting events contested so far, China has three golds, the Czech Republic two, while India, Finland, South Korea and the United States share the remaining four. -- AFP