Shooters bang on target, Indian tally swells

Melbourne, Mar 17 (UNI) If India's day one campaign in the 18th Commonwealth Games belonged to the lifters, shooters hit the bull's eye on day two, bagging three gold and two silver and promising much more.

India have so far collected four gold and three silver from the Games.

Abhinav Bindra (591) and Gagan Narang (598) shot down the first gold medal of the day in the men's 10m air rifle pairs, with a total of 1189, shattering the existing Games record by a huge five-point margin in men's 10m air rifle.

In women's 25m pistol pairs, Saroja Kumari Jhuthu (574) teamed up with Sushma Rana (566) to grab the gold with a total of 1140, six points ahead of the Australian duo of Pamela McKenzie (565) and Lalita Yauhleuskaya (569).

In women's 10m air rifle pairs, Tajaswini Sawant (395) and Avneet Kaur Sidhu (396) looked much superior in the field as they won hands down with an aggregate of 791, ahead of their rivals from Canada and Singapore.

The gold, however, eluded defending champion Samaresh Jung (547) and Vivek Singh (535) in the 50m pistol pairs and they had to finish second best, behind the Australian pair of David Moore (537) and Daniel Repacholi (549), who aggregated 1086.

Men trap shooters also had similar misfortune as they were out of the bronze medal on a countback.

Isle of Man's Trevor Charles Boyles and David Robert Walton (183) beat India's Manavjit Singh and Mansher Singh, on countback for the bronze.

Isle of Man's shooters shot 46 out of 50 in their last set, while the Indians shot 45 out of 50.

Meanwhile, a day after Kunjarani Dev's gold medal, another Indian lifter climbed the podium today. Arun Murugesan could have finished on top in men's 62 kg weightlifting but 80 grams separated him from Sri Lankan Chinthana Vidanage who won the gold by virtue of lighter body weight after both had lifted 271 kg.

Indian paddlers looked in their prime today as the trio of Soumyadeep Roy, Achanta Sharath Kamal and Subhajit Saha helped India trounced Northern Ireland and host Australia by an identical 3-0 margin to top the pool and storm into the quarterfinals of the Men's Table Tennis competition.

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