Indian shooters end on a high

Gurpreet Singh and Shweta Chaudhary added a couple of more gold medals as Indian shooters swept the final day of the Commonwealth Shooting Championships to finish on top of the tally with a whopping 49 medals at the Karni Singh Range in New Delhi, on Saturday.

India ended the event with 23 gold, 17 silver and 9 bronze medals and after adding the consolation badges given to  the third shooter in a team event, the hosts' tally swelled to 74.

England finished a distant second with 31 medals and badges, while Wales ended third on the table after winning 13 medals and badges.

Gurpreet stunned Samaresh Jung to clinch the 25m Standard Pistol gold.

Gurpreet, who partnered Samaresh to clinch the standard pistol pairs gold on Friday, shot a score of 567 to grab the top honours in the individual event, two points clear of Samaresh.

Indians made a clean sweep in this event with Vijay Kumar grabbing the bronze medal after shooting 564.

Similar was the scene in 10m Air Pistol competition for women where Indians took all three positions on the podium.

Shweta Chaudhary notched up the gold medal with a score of 479.9 (380+99.7), while Annuraj Singh finished a close second after shooting 478.9 (379+99.9).

The bronze was bagged by Pushpanjali Rana who shot a score of 473.7 (375+98.7).

However, Gagan Narang's golden streak came to an end as he had to be content with a silver in the 50m Rifle Prone event after losing in the shoot-off. Gagan had bagged four gold medals coming into this event.

Gagan (596+101.5) and Australian Warren Potent (595+102.5) were tied at a score of 697.5 but the shooter from Down Under ended up on top after piping the Indian to post in the shoot-off. While Gagan shot a 10, Potent nosed ahead with a score of 10.3.

The bronze medal went to another Australian Thomas Versace, who shot 697.2.

There was similar heartbreak for India in skeet men's singles where Weshman Malcolm Allen beat local favourite Mairaj Ahmed Khan in the tie-breaker to clinch the gold medal.

Both the shooters were tied at a score of 143 after the final round but Allen finished a point ahead of the Indian in the tie-breaker.