Indian shooters clinch gold in 10m air rifle pair in CWG

OLYMPIC GOLD medalist Abhinav Bindra and world champion Gagan Narang did maximum amount of justice on the hopes which were put upon them. The ace shooters on Tuesday clinched gold medals for mens 10m air rifle pair's event in New Delhi. The medals mark India's first gold in the ongoing event.

Brits James Huckle and Kenny Parr was a distant second with 1174 points, while Bangladesh's Abdullah Hel Baki and Mohammad Asif Hossain Khan took the bronze at 1173.

The ace Indian shooters represented India in the 10m air rifle event before world champion Tejeswani Sawant, who had previously won two gold medals at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games and Lajja Goswami, who clinched 50m, 3rd position event later in the day.

Deepak Sharma and Omkar Singh will be trying their luck in the 50m free pistol event and Rahi Sarnobat and Anisa Sayyed will compete in 25m pistol event for women. Looking at the high tension levels, national coach Sunny Thomas added that Gagan and Abhinav are two top class performers and going by their past records, we should not have much difficulty winning a medal in air rifle. He also said that shooting is a very unpredictable event, so nobody is sure about who will win or who will not.

Hopes were at a all time high with Gagan Narang as he is titled as the world record holder. He had scored 600 out of 600 during his unparalleled record-winning feat - in air rifle event. However, Olympic Gold medalist Bindra required grace marks to qualify for the CWG 2010 team against Sanjeev Rajput. The latter had scored a 597 at the Pune trials in August.