Paris, France: China’s Yin Ruoning leads a strong Asia-Pacific chase for glory at the half-way stage of the Paris Olympics.

With 36 holes remaining at Le Golf National, Yin is one of six players from the region in the top-11 – and within striking distance of capturing a coveted medal.

Finding her range, Yin, who briefly held the world number one position last year, fired a brilliant bogey-free seven-under 65 on Thursday to climb 11 places into second spot on 137 – one shot behind surprise pace-setter Morgane Metraux of Switzerland.

Two strokes further back in third is New Zealander Lydia Ko – the only golfer to win multiple Olympic individual medals, having claimed silver in Rio in 2016 and bronze in Tokyo 2020.

Among six players locked together in joint sixth on 141 are Thai Atthaya Thitikul, China’s Lin Xiyu, Japan’s Miyu Yamashita and Bianca Pagdanganan of the Philippines.

Atthaya won the inaugural Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific in 2018, the same year she was low individual in the Queen Sirikit Cup.

During their amateur days, Yin, Lin, Ko and Pagdanganan also represented their countries in the Queen Sirikit Cup.

Although seemingly out of contention, Singapore’s Shannon Tan, another ex-Queen Sirikit Cup standout, improved on her opening-day 78 by eight strokes. Thanks to that effort she moved up 13 places into a share of 36th place in the 60-strong field.

“The course conditions were similar to yesterday – thick rough and firm greens. I thought that some of the pins were a little easier,” said 20-year-old Tan, who hit 16 of 18 greens in regulation and has a two-day total of four-over 148.

She added: “The gameplan was to keep the ball in play and keep it simple – fairways and greens. The rough is really thick so keeping it on the fairway is key. There were a few holes where I hit three-wood just to make sure I was able to hit the fairway and accept that I’ll have a longer club for my second shot.”