Gagan bags gold in 10m air rifle event

Ace marksman Gagan Narang bagged gold in the 10m air rifle while reigning Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra finished eighth after skipping the final for which he had qualified at the 11th Kumar Surendra Singh Memorial Shooting Championship in the Balewadi Ranges.

Another top marksman Samaresh Jung bit the dust and finished outside the medal bracket in the 10m air pistol event which was won by Border Security Force's Amit Kumar Pilaniya.

Delhi Commonwealth Games hero Narang of Air India grabbed the top spot in the air rifle competition with a total score of 693.6, including 100.6 in the final where he was upstaged by second-placed K Purushottam of Karnataka who shot 102.4 for an overall tally of 692.4.

The Hyderabad-based Narang's qualifying score of 593, three better than Purushottam's, helped him clinch the gold.

Navy's Sanjeev Rajput, who fired 591 in the qualifiers and then 101.0 in the final for a tally of 692.0 took the third spot ahead of his teammate P T Raghunath (691.9) in a close contest.

Bindra's no-show at the eight-man final round prevented an eagerly anticipated showdown with world record holder Narang.

After firing 592, just one short of Narang's score in the preliminaries, the Beijing Olympic gold medallist did not take part in the final.

The team gold was grabbed by the Army trio of Imran Khan, Satendra Singh and Chain Singh (1767) with Navy (1762) and Railways (1760) coming in second and third, respectively.

Pilaniya, a student of Narang's Gun for Glory Academy, fired 579.6 to clinch the air pistol title ahead of P N Prakash of Karnataka (577.0) and Mahaveer Singh of MP (576.6).

Jung, representing CIS, ended up 4th with a tally of 575.2 after shooting 575 in the preliminaries.

The team gold in the 10m air pistol was claimed by the Army trio of Vijay Kumar, Om Praksh ans Jitu Rai (1710) with the silver and bronze going to Navy (1706) and Punjab (1691).

There was a major upset in the women's 50m rifle prone event when world champion Tejaswini Sawant was pushed to the fourth spot by the army trio of Birmati, who clinched the title with a score of 592, Ruby Garg and Raj Chaudhary.

Maharashtra's Tejaswini, Ruby and Raj all tallied identical 591 with silver winner Ruby notching up 37 inner tens while the other two had the same number of 34 to their credit.

Raj pipped Tejaswini on countback as she fired 100 in the tenth and last shot, while the latter shot 98.

The Army women's clean sweep of the medals also gave them the team gold with 1774 ahead of second placed Maharashtra (1747), who had the seasoned Anjali Bhagwat too, and third-placed Railways (1720).