M A I N   N E W S

Golden finish for Jung again

Melbourne, March 22
Pistol shooter Samresh Jung continued his gold shopping spree bagging his fifth on the trot with a new games record at the 18th Commonwealth Games here today.

Jung, who is the highest medal winner in the games so far, eclipsed the old mark in men's 10 m air pistol individual title to move closer to his target of seven gold medals from eight disciplines after settling for a silver on the opening day.

If he gets to his target, the Delhi marksman will become the highest gold getter in the history of the games ahead of Australian swimmers Ian Thorpe and Susie O Neill, who earned six gold medals apiece in earlier editions.

Another Indian in the fray Vivek Singh picked up the silver and Friedhelm Sack of Namibia took the bronze.

Sanjeev Rajput added to India's medal kitty lapping up the bronze in men's 50 m rifle prone event.

In men's trap, Manavjit Singh Sandhu finished with a bronze totalling 138 (1+4).

Jung fired a record 584 in the qualification and 101.4 in the final round to aggregate 685.4 eclipsing the previous mark of 679.9 credited to Mick Gault of England in Kuala Lumpur in 1998. The Indian fired a string of 97, 96, 99, 98, 97 and 97 in the qualification event before the finals.

Vivek Singh, who missed a bronze by 0.3 points yesterday, made up for his disappointment by managing a total of 677.6, 578 in qualifications and 99.6 in the finals, to finish second in the standings.

Friedhelm Sack of Namibia settled for the bronze with 677.2, just 0.4 points adrift of the Indian in the finals, after he tied at 578 points with Vivek in the qualifications.

Manavjit, who shot rounds of 24 and 25 yesterday, today return with the card with 138 to be tied with Graeme Ede of New Zealand and David John of Northern Ireland.

The New Zealander ran away with the top honours when the three vied again scoring 138 (+2) while John edged past Manavjit just by a slender margin of one point tallying 138(1+4).

Sanjeev Rajput managed his first medal in the tournament with 695.7 (594+101.7) in the prone event. Rajput shot three perfect 100s, one round each of 99, 98 and 97 in the qualifications.

But his compatriot Joydeep Karmakar could not make it to the finals despite shooting a perfect round of 100 and two 99s, which combined to tally only 589.

Indian could not claim honours in the 50 m rifle prone where debutante Damaraju LS Priya (579) and her senior colleague Deepali Deshpande (576) flopped by finishing seventh and a lowly 14th respectively. — PTI