The Hindu : Sport : Samaresh misses sixth gold

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 25, 2006

Sport

Sport

Samaresh misses sixth gold

Gagan Narang bags gold with record effort, Abhinav Bindra claims silver

— Photo: PTI

MAKE THAT FOUR: Gagan Narang (right) won his fourth gold of the Games in the 50m rifle three position, while Abhinav Bindra took the silver.

MELBOURNE: Luck deserted Samaresh Jung when he needed it most and he failed to win his sixth gold in the 25m centre fire pistol event at the Commonwealth Games here on Friday.

However, Gagan Narang struck his fourth gold with a new Games record in the 50m rifle three position, while compatriot Abhinav Bindra claimed the silver.

India has so far collected 27 medals — 16 gold, seven silver and four bronze — in shooting.

Ming Shaw wins

Samaresh, who finished with a bronze, can still equal the record of six golds held by swimmers Ian Thorpe and Susie O'Neill. He totalled 578 at the end of the precision and rapid events and was tied for the top spot with two others — Ming Shaw On of Singapore and New Zealand's Gregory Yelavich.

In the shoot-out, Samaresh finished with 47/50 while Ming Shaw and Yelavich had a 48 each. However, it was the Singapore shooter who took the gold with a total of 144/150, while Yelavich's 141 gave him the silver.

Jaspal Rana, who was one of the two shooters in the field of 31 who had a series of 100/100 in this event, ended fourth.

Gagan and Abhinav took the top two spots in the 50m rifle three position with scores of 1261.4 and 1248.6 respectively. Gagan rewrote Charan Singh's record of 1251.5 set in Manchester 2002. Australia's Ben Burge took the bronze with 1238.2.

In women's skeet, India's Arti Singh Rao finished last in the final with a total of 82. The gold was won by Cyprus' Andri Eleftheriou, while the silver went to Lauryn Mark of Australia. The bronze was bagged by England's Pinky Grelle Le.

Way behind

In men's skeet, India's Amit Sanghi and Prithviraj Bedi were way down the leaderboard at the end of the first day of the two-day competition. Amit, with a 46, was joint 10th and Bedi (45) was 14th. — UNI

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail