Indian shooters continued to bring home more medals as Gagan Narang won the country’s third medal yesterday clinching the men’s 50-metre rifle prone silver in the finals at the Commonwealth Games here.
Earlier in the day, Indians Jitu Rai and Gurpal Singh won gold and silver, respectively, in the men’s 50-metre pistol finals at the Barry Buddon Shooting Centre.
Narang was in the fight right till the very end but Australian veteran Warren Potent was a tad better. Eventually the Australian took the gold and Narang -- who has bagged eight CWG gold medals -- had to settle for the silver. England’s Kenneth Parr won the bronze.
The 52-year-old Potent won the yellow metal in style as he set the Finals Games Record (FGR) with a final score of 204.3 points. Narang, who also won the 2012 London Olympic bronze in 10m air rifle, fought hard till the finish but had to give in with a score of 203.6 points. Parr finished third with 182.
This is the Hyderabadi’s ninth medal at the Commonwealth Games and his first silver. The 31-year-old won four golds in 2006 Melbourne and four more golds in 2010 at home in Delhi.
Earlier, Narang had finished third in the qualifier with 620.5 points. Potent had also topped the qualification with a new Games Record of 624.5 points while Parr was second with 620.8.
The other Indian in the fray, Joydeep Karmakar missed the final cut-off by a whisker as he finished ninth with 617 points, 1.3 behind the eighth and last qualifier for the finals.
This is India’s 12th medal from the discipline at the 2014 Glasgow Games.