Wrestlers, shooters make India’s golden day

NEW DELHI - It was a golden Tuesday for India at the Commonwealth Games, wrestlers and shooters minting five gold and two silver medals with marksmen setting new records.

The rich gold haul — the best by any country this day — pushed India up behind table toppers Australia in the medals tally. The Aussies collected one less than India, three of these coming from the cycling velodrome and the other from gymnastics.

Overall, Australia have eight gold and England with two gold are in third spot.

India’s gold rush on the second day of the Games began with Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra and world number 3 Gagan Narang hitting the bull’s eye in the 10m air rifle pairs event. The two tallied 1,193 points together to beat their own record of 1,189 points set at the Melbourne Games four years ago.

Women shooters brought up the second gold, setting a Games record in the process.

Rahi Sarnobat and Anisa Sayyed were bang on target in the 25m pistol pairs event, scoring 1,156 points to take home the yellow metal. The earlier record was 1,152 points held by Australians.

The inspired show by the shooters was capped by the wrestlers who made a clean sweep of the Greco-Roman category with Anil Kumar, Sanjay Kumar and and Ravinder Singh bagging gold in the 96kg, 74 kg and 60kg respectively.

Shooters also won two silver medals — Deepak Sharma and Omkar Singh in the men’s 50m pistol pairs event and Tejaswini Sawant and Lajja Gauswami in the women’s pairs 50m rifle 3 position.

An elated Bindra said it was his “best moment” since winning the Beijing Olympics gold.

“This is my best moment since Beijing. It is always special to win a medal for the country. And this is the first time I am competing in such a big event on Indian soil,” Bindra, who was also the country’s flag bearer at the opening ceremony, said soon after the pair’s sterling showing.

In tennis and swimming events also Indians gave a good acoount of themselves.

Games top seed in tennis Somdev Devvarman sailed into the second round of the men’s singles with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Devin Mullings of the Bahamas.

In swimming Veerdhawal Khade and Sandeep Sejwal qualified for the semi-finals of the 50-metre butterfly and 100-metre breast-stroke events.