Golden day for Indian shooters at Games

Melbourne, Mar 17 (UNI) Spearheaded by Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang, Indian shooters' campaign in the Commonwealth Games got off to a golden start as they claimed three golds and a silver in the four finals of the pairs event decided here today.

With these early medals, Indian hopes for a bigger haul in the individual events starting next week got a tremendous boost.

Indian men trap shooters, however, were locked out of the bronze medal on a countback as hot favourites Australia's Adam Vella and Michael Diamond (189) ran away with the gold and Canada's Tye Warner Bietz and Kirk Reynolds (185) took the silver.

Isle of Mann Trevor Charles Boyles and David Robert Walton (183) beat India's Manavjit Singh and Mansher Singh, on countback for the bronze. Isle of Mann's shooters shot 46 out of 50 in their last set, while the Indians shot a 45 out of 50. Manavjit Singh shot 93 and Mansher 90 as they totalled 183.

Earlier, Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang brought in the first gold medals in the men's 10m air rifle pairs shattering the existing Games record by a huge five-point margin.

Samaresh Jung and Vivek Singh then landed a silver, which was a disappointment for the Indian pair, who came in with hopes of a gold medal in men's 50m pistol pairs.

Eds pick up suitably from earlier series.

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