By Abhishek Roy, IANS,
New Delhi : Indian shooters Vijay Kumar and Gurpreet Singh brought the country its sixth gold from the ranges by winning the 25-metre rapid fire pistol pairs event with a new Commonwealth Games record here Thursday.
However, newly crowned world champion Tejaswini Sawant disappointed as she failed to qualify for the women’s 50-metre rifle three position final.
Kumar (587) and Singh (575) shot a total of 1162 to win the yellow metal ahead of Malaysia and Australia at the Karni Singh Shooting Ranges.
The Indians broke the Games record of 1134 by a huge margin. That was set by Vijay Kumar and Pemba Tamang at the 2006 Melbourne Games.
“It always feels great to win the gold by breaking our own record. This time we broke the Games record by a huge margin of 28 points. It was a tough competition as all the participating teams have sent their best players,” he said.
Malaysian duo Hasli Izwan Hasan Amir (576) and Hafiz Adzha (568) shot a cumulative 1144. Australia’s Bruce Quick (563) and David Chapman (562) shot a total of 1125.
But there was bad news for the hosts in the women’s 50-metre rifle three position contest as Tejaswani finished ninth. Only the top eight shooters qualified for the finals. Tejaswani’s compatriot Lajja Gauswami, who made it to the final, took the sixth place returning a total score of 666.8 (570 in qualifying, 96.8 in final).
Australia bagged their first shooting gold medal through Alethes Sedgman, who shot a total of 676 (575 in qualifying and 101 in final).
Singapore’s Xiang Wei Jasmine and Aquilah Sudhir won the silver and bronze. Jasmine shot a total of 672.6 (571 in qualifying and 101.6 in final) while Aquilah had a total of 671.3 (577 in qualifying and 94.3 in final).
Till Wednesday, Indians had picked up five golds from the ranges.