Straight from Dr. Karni Singh Stadium: Day 2

It was raining medals for the Indian Shooting Contingent here in the Dr. Karni Singh Stadium on the second day of shooting. Seven of the Eight Indians bagged medals here today.

The day began marvelously for Gagan Narang, scoring perfect 600 in the qualifying round of ‘Singles 10 M Air Rifle Men’ equalizing his own world record set two years back in the World Cup Finals in Beijing. On the other hand, the only Indian Olympic Gold Medallist – Abhinav Bindra scored 595 in the qualifying round adding 103 more in the final shots to total 698 and settle for Silver. Gagan in the final round scored 103.6 to total 703.6 and bagged the first gold of the day. Huckle James of England scored 591 in the Qualification round and 102.5 in the Final round to total 693.5 and had to be content with Bronze.

However in the ‘Pairs Double Trap Men’, despite World No. 3 Ronjan Sodhi scoring perfect 50 and the baby boy of Indian Shooting and Junior World Champion Asher Noria scoring 46 in Round 1, England’s Stevan Walson and Steven Scott overshoot the Indian pairs in round 2 to clinch the Gold Medal. The England pairs scored 49 and 46 in Round 1and 47 each in Round 2 totaling 189. Sodhi with 45 and Noria with 47 could manage 92 points, just one point lower than their England counterparts which cost them the Gold. The bronze medal went to the Malaysian pairs – Benjamin Cheng Jie Khor (46 & 47) and Seng Chye Khor (47 & 45) finishing 3 points below the Indians at 185.

India’s Italian coach Marcello Dradi wasn’t happy with the double trap shootrs saying “I am not happy with the silver. I am a professional coach and have come here to give India a gold medal. This was the best team we could have and unfortunately we missed the gold by one point,”

In ‘Singles 25 M Pistol Women’ both the Indian ladies continued with their good show yesterday to clinch Gold and Silver. Anisa Sayyed broke the 8 years old record of Australia’s Lalita Yauhleuskaya (781.5) by scoring a total of 786.8 to clinch the Gold. Competing against her senior counterpart Anisa, Rahi Sarnobat scored 781 to settle for Silver. Scoring 778.2, The Bronze Medal went to Malaysia’s Pei Chin Bibiana Ng. However the record holder Lalita, with her disappointing score of 772 had to settle at the 4^th position without a medal.

The last Gold (‘Singles 50 M Pistol Men’) of the day in Karni Singh Stadium, after a tough fight came to Omkar Singh, who impressively scored 653.6 to beat Singapore’s Bin Gai (Silver) who scored 649.6. Swee Hon Lim another Shooter from Singapore with a score of 644.7 had to settle for Bronze. Omkar scored 557 in the qualifying round and added 96.6 in the final shots to clinch Gold for India. Incidentally it was these pair from Singapore who denied Omkar and Deepak Gold in ‘Pairs 50m Pistol Men’ yesterday.

The only disappointment today for India from Karni Singh Stadium was Deepak Sharma, who failed to qualify even for the Final Draw of ‘Singles 50 M Pistol Men’. With a score of 536 he was placed in the 11^th position. Only the top 8 qualifies for the final draw.

The Indian Shooting Contingent so far has won 5 Golds and 3 Silvers from 8 competitions thereby winning medals in every competition.

With another four competitions to take place tomorrow, Indian shooters certainly will be hoping to carry on with the good form and win more medals for India.