Sports of World

Two pairs of shooters were bang on target while the grapplers made a clean sweep of all three titles at stake as India grabbed five gold medals to climb to the second spot in the medals table below Australia in the Commonwealth Games today.

The Indian men's 10m air rifle pair of Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra and world record holder Gagan Narang started the gold rush for the country in the morning which was sustained by women shooters Rahi Sarnobat and Anisa Sayeed who picked up the pairs 25m pistol event for women in style.

Two more silver medals came India's way from the Dr Karni Singh shooting range before greco-roman style grapplers Ravinder Singh (60 kg), Sanjay (74 kg) and Anil Kumar (96kg) made a clean sweep of all three gold medals on offer from the wrestling mat to round off a splendid day for the hosts.
The two silver medals were earned by Deepak Sharma and Omkar Singh, in the men's 50m pistol pairs event, and the woman's duo of world champion Tejaswini Sawant and Lajjakumari Gauswami, who stood second in the pairs 50m rifle 3 position.

The five gold and two silver medals boosted the hosts' overall medal tally to 5-4-2 on the second day of competitions after the weightlifers gave the country two silver and as many bronze medals yesterday. The three wrestling gold medals pitchforked India to the second place behind Australia after England overtook the home country briefly through their first two golds from the pool won by Liam John Tancock (men's 50m backstroke) and Francesca Jean Halsall (women's 50m butterlfly).

The day commenced in scintillating fashion for India when Bindra and Narang ended the first day's gold medal drought with a Games record of 1193, overtaking their own mark of 1189 set four years ago in Melbourne, to clinch the men's 10m air rifle pairs event.

Their feat was followed by a superb display of calm nerves and dead centre shooting by the women's duo of Rahi Sarnobat and Anisa Sayyed who added the second gold in the women's 25m pistol pairs event with a championship record of 1156 to boot.

Sharma and Omkar ended up second in the men's 50m pairs event (1187) behind Lim Swee Hon and Gai Bin of Singapore.

Later Tejaswani and Lajjakumari finished second in the women's 50m air rifle 3 position, by equalling the 2006 Games mark of 1143 points, Singapore's Aquilah Sudhir and Jasmine Xiang Wei who broke the previous record by six points.

"Many thought I am a dictator, since I had imposed a gag order on the shooters prior to the Games. But whatever I was doing, I was doing for the country. And we have got the reward for that," said a beaming national coach Sunny Thomas after his team members won a medal in each of the four events they took part in during the day.

Read more: Timesofindia.indiatimes.com