Jitu Rai, Naib Subedar in the Gorkha Regiment of the Indian army, seems to possess the patience of a monk; yet, over the last few days, he's displayed a great deal of restlessness. His roommate at the hotel here, Gurpal Singh, says that Rai has been fretting and worrying — he just could not wait for his event, 50m Pistol, to begin.

“I've been asking him to relax, to be patient,” says Gurpal Singh. “We spend a lot of time together… In the evenings, at dinner, or in the mornings, we discuss ways to improve, and Jitu has been a bit worked up.”

After the 50m Pistol event got over here today, Gurpal could not stop smiling and laughing, while Rai was sated and happy. Rai had won gold and Gurpal had won silver in the event. In the final, Rai won by a massive margin of nearly seven points, 194.1 points to Gurpal's 187.2. “I was very confident that I was going to win,” says the slightly-built, soft-spoken Rai.

Daniel Repacholi of Australia, who won gold in the 10m Pistol event, took bronze today after being eliminated by Gurpal. “That little shooter, Rai, has been really good and it was a very difficult challenge for me,” says Repacholi.

Rai, born in Nepal, has been with the Army since 2006; his father too served in the Indian army, and his mother lives in the village of Saukhuwasar in Nepal. “The army has done so much for me,” he says.

Rai, 26, started shooting in the army; before he peaked this year — winning a gold and silver in the World Cup last month — Rai has had a challenging career. The army's elite competition level shooters train at Mhow in Madhya Pradesh; only the cream of the shooters in the army can train there — if they are no longer among the very best, they're sent back to their units. After he was inducted into the Mhow camp, Rai was sent back to his Gorkha Regiment unit in Lucknow in 2007 — he had slipped and was no longer an elite army shooter. It was back to the combat weapons like the assault rifles and the Beretta pistol for him. He worked hard, improved and was taken back into the Mhow shooting camp twice — in 2008 and then in 2011.

During his time away from Mhow, Rai managed to keep his spirits high and continue his quest to improve due to the support of one man. “It was Garbharaj Rai who motivated me and encouraged me to keep practising in order to get back into the Mhow camp, then into the national team,” says Rai. “He supported me in every way possible in my training… I couldn't have won without his support.”

Two years ago, when he went to compete in his first World Cup, Rai was completely anonymous — he had won nothing. But medals in the World Cup raised his ranking in the 50m Pistol event to No. 4. He is the world No. 1 in 10m Pistol event, but he is not part of the team for that event.

At all the venues, the security is provided by personnel of the British armed forces — the army, navy and air force, apart form the police. For a particular section of this group, Rai's fame is of deep interest. They are the men of the Royal Gurkha Rifles of the United Kingdom. They come from Nepal and parts of India, and they're very keen to meet Rai. When they meet an Indian journalist, they wish to know where “that gorkha shooter” is.

Rai says that he'll go to Glasgow to meet them — he's been living in a hotel near the shooting range at Carnoustie, a two-hour drive from Glasgow. “Some boys from my village are in the UK armed forces,” says Rai. “I'll go to Glasgow some time, maybe tomorrow, to see which of them is here!”

Carnoustie, July 28
“I’m from Bhattu Kalan village of Fatehbad in Haryana, but no one knows me there!” says Gurpal Singh, winner of the silver in the 50m Pistol event. That, he says, is because he’s grown up in the Bathinda district of Punjab. “I was with my paternal grandfather in Bathinda district… It was so because my uncles were older and there was no child in the family,” Gurpal told The Tribune. “So they sort of adopted me, and my education took place there, I got employed from there, and all my documents are from district Bathinda.”

Gurpal Singh, like gold medal winner Jitu Rai, is a Naib Subedar in the Indian army and trains at Mhow in Madhya Pradesh, but he’s due for a promotion. “I came here on July 13, and I was due for a promotion… It must have taken place, but I haven’t learnt it officially,” says Gurpal, 34, who’s been an armyman for 14 years.

As Gurpal shot, with Australia’s Daniel Repacholi breathing down his neck in the penultimate round, he could hear his own heartbeat — the struggle to control the heart and the flow of the blood in the veins is the key for a shooter.

Yet, there were weightier matters than a mere Commonwealth Games silver medal on his mind.

He had heard from his mother than some of the members of their extended family, with whom there is an ongoing dispute over property, had taken over some part of Gurpal’s family farm. “How could I focus on shooting after hearing this kind of news? My father passed away a few years ago and my mother has no support there, and my brother is handicapped,” Gurpal says. “I felt so helpless, I just didn’t know what I could do to help my family.”

He says that he managed to stay focussed today with great difficulty.

He’s faced great challenges as a shooter, too. “I’ve been shooting in the international level since 2010, but this is my biggest medal,” he says. “I’ve got about 40 medals in the national level, but this is something else.”

Gurpal says that Vijay Kumar — the London Olympics silver medallist — has shown shooters like him the way in the army. “After he won medals in the 2006 Commonwealth Games, facilities improved in Mhow,” the J&K Rifles Naib Subedar says. “There’s good discipline in the army, and due to that reason we’re able to remain fit … But things improved in terms of facilities, coaching etc after 2007.”

He’s not yet called his family — his wife Harpreet, daughter Tanvir (five years old) and son Sehajdeep (2) haven’t watched him shooting. “The TV channel that is showing shooting is not available in my place,” he says.

When he does call his wife, she tells him that they’ve heard the good news.

Hopefully, the rest of Haryana and Punjab have heard it too — Harpreet hopes that that would help end his family troubles back home in Bhattu Kalan.

Glasgow, July 28
Shortly before the medals ceremony was to begin, Satish Sivalingam, the gold medal winner in the 77kg weightlifting category, was missing.

The podium was set up, the bagpiper man who marks the start of the ceremony was ready to pipe his tune, the girls carrying the medals on the salvers were ready. Satish wasn’t around — he was not even in the building.

The 22-year-old, who had created a new CWG record in the Snatch category with a lift of 149kg, then rushed in through the athletes’ entrance, escorted by the volunteers, talking excitedly on the mobile phone.

It was a mighty important phone call.

Satish was talking to his beloved “Pappa” — his dad back home in Vellore, the man whose dream Satish made come true. N Sivalingam belonged to what Satish described as a “poor farmer’s family”; he had taken up weightlifting in order to get a job in the army. “Pappa became a national level lifter himself, but he kept his dream of winning an international medal alive through me,” Satish told this writer in accented but extremely competent Hindi, which he learnt because he has lived in Bhopal and Hyderabad, where his father was stationed before he retired.

When Satish was 15, his father said: “Right, let’s get you into sports, let's do something!” He took Satish to a gym near their house in Vellore and the young man’s sporting life started.

Satish rose through the ranks over the years. He trained at Vellore; then, at 19, got a job with the Indian Railways. When he was good enough, he joined the national training camp at Patiala. Last year, he won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Championships gold medallist. He had arrived.

Last night, he faced the challenge of India’s Ravi Kumar Katulu, who has an interesting story, too. Ravi won the gold at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, but in the 69kg category. For 2014, he moved to the higher category of 77kg – that was Satish’s territory.

Satish has an enormous amount of respect for Ravi, who is four years older, and much senior to him in terms of international performances, too.

“Last year, Ravi sir had a shoulder injury in 69kg category, so he came on to the 77kg category,” Satish said.

“Because he came into my category, it improved my performance,” he said. “Every day if he improved one kilo, I'd work hard and try to improve two kilos. That's why I was able to improve.”

“In weightlifting, it’s very difficult to change your category, and your performance goes down,” Satish added. “But he's done very well, and we all knew that it was going to be a fight between the two of us!”

Satish said that the two of them are great friends and have even shared rooms — no spiking each other’s food or drink with sleeping pills or laxatives, he assured us.

The other competing lifters were in awe of the two Indians, as was the crowd at the venue. The weightlifting team had reached the United Kingdom last month, and that helped them get acclimatised to the conditions. The two best lifts of his life both came here, in just over a month’s time.

“I made the same lift of 149kg after I reached the United Kingdom, during our training in Birmingham,” Satish said. Satish reached Birmingham with the Indian team on June 23 — he remembers that well because that was his birthday. “Reaching early helped her get used to the climate and the food,” he said. “The accommodation and food were good, and the training hall was good. The local organisers were very good, so a big thanks to them!”

The Tamil Nadu government has announced a reward of Rs 50 lakh for the new Commonwealth Games champion. Satish said that he came from a “poor” family, and it was only after he got a job and then moved to the national camps that he was able to ensure a proper diet for himself. It would have been so great if he’d got a suitable support from his state government — if not Rs 50 lakh — when he was growing up. It’s possible to think that then he’d have been in a position to compete for medals much bigger than those on offer in the Commonwealth.

C Narayan Singh today qualified for the finals of the men's hammer throw event at the 20th Commonwealth Games even as Kamalpreet Singh crashed out in the qualifying round, here. 23-year-old Narayan threw the hammer to a distance of 67.95 in his first attempt, which proved to be his best and enought to make it to the 12-man final. His second attempt was disapproved and in the third he managed a distance of 67.20m. Kamalpreet finished sixth, and could not make it to the finals. —Agencies. 

After losing to New Zealand, the Indian women hockey team came back strongly to thrash lowly Trinidad and Tobago 14-0. The Indian women took 37 shots at the goal, converting 14 of them. Their opponent could not have a single shot at the goal.

Southampton, July 28
Ian Bell rediscovered his form with sparkling 167 as England piled up a mammoth first innings total of 569/7 to take control of the third Test against India.

After Alastair Cook, it was Bell’s turn to roar back to form with a blazing knock while debutant Jos Buttler upped the ante with a dazzling 83-ball-85 before England skipper decided to declare.

At stumps, India were 25 for one in 14 overs as their first target will be to reach the magic figure of 370 thereby saving the follow-on. Murali Vijay (11 batting) and Cheteshwar Pujara (4 batting) were at the crease. Shikhar Dhawan's (6) English Summer turned from bad to worse as he edged one from James Anderson to Cook at slip.

The day belonged to senior pro Bell, who hit his 21st Test century and also crossed the 7000 run mark en route his century. He completed the landmark with a majestic straight six off Ravindra Jadeja to complete the landmark. His partnership with another centurion Gary Ballance (156) yielded 142 runs before the left-hander was adjudged caught behind off Rohit Sharma, which later looked to be a dubious decision. Ballance, struck 24 boundaries in 288 balls in an innings, that spanned over six hours and 15 minutes. Joe Root and Moeen Ali were dismissed cheaply in the post lunch session by Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who was by far the most impressive Indian bowler with figures of 3/101 from 37 overs. However it was young Buttler replacing Prior, who stole the show in the last session with some breathtaking hitting as he struck nine fours and three sixes. Buttler was lucky to when there was no conclusive evidence of Ajinkya Rahane taking a clean catch in the slips. — PTI

Scoreboard
England 1st innings
Cook c Dhoni b Jadeja 95
Robson c Jadeja b Shami 26
Ballance c Dhoni b Sharma 156
Bell c Pankaj Singh b Kumar 167
Root c Dhoni b Kumar 3
Ali c Rahane b Kumar 12
Buttler b Jadeja 85
Woakes not out 7
Extras: (b 5, lb 11, w 2) 18
Total: (7 wickets; 163.4 ov) 569
Fall of wickets: 1-55 2-213 3-355 4-378 5-420 6-526, 7-569 
Bowling
Kumar 37-10-101-3
Shami 33-4-123-1
Pankaj 37-8-146-0
Rohit 9-0-26-1
Jadeja 45.4-10-153-2
Dhawan 2-0-4-0

India 1st innings
Vijay not out 11
Dhawan c Cook b Anderson 6
Pujara not out 4
Extras: (b 4) 4
Total: (1 wicket; 14 ov) 25
Fall of wickets: 1-17 
Bowling
Anderson 7-3-14-1
Broad 4-2-4-0
Jordan 2-1-3-0
Woakes 1-1-0-0

Southampton, July 28
India’s bowling coach Joe Dawes was apprehensive about Ishant Sharma`s fitness, saying the pace spearhead will undergo tests in the next few days after missing out on the third Test due to a sore leg.

Tall fast bowler Pankaj Singh replaced Ishant in the Indian squad.

“Ishant has a sore leg. We need to do a few more tests but we have 11 days before for the next Test, so we will watch him carefully,” Dawes said after the day’s play.

Asked at what juncture the team decided to leave him out, he said, "Pankaj was named in the first 12 yesterday. Ishant had a bowl in the morning before toss but he felt sore and then around 10.20 am (about ten minutes before toss) it was decided.”

“Maybe it was not the best days for our bowling attack, but Pankaj coming through was a real positive for us. He could have easily got a couple of wickets but things didn’t go his way. Bhuvneshwar (Kumar) had an off day. We are working on the consistency of our bowlers," said the coach. Dawes also informed that the young Indian attack had dinner with West Indies great Michael Holding ahead of the match.

“Yes, we had dinner with Michael Holding and the bowlers had a lot of questions for him. It was a good time spent with the royalty of fast bowling,” he added.

Cook was able to get away on the day when Ravindra Jadeja dropped him on 15. There have been a lot of changes with the slip cordon for India since the transition set in, and it doesn?t look set at the moment.

“It is a new cordon and the ball wobbles a bit here in England after going past the bat. They are working hard as a group. Even Mark Waugh and Mark Taylor dropped a few in their time,” he signed off. — PTI

Colombo, July 28
South Africa reclaimed top spot in Test rankings after grimly hanging on for a draw in the second and final Test against Sri Lanka on Monday to win the series 1-0.

It was South Africa's first series win under new captain Hashim Amla and only their second series victory in Sri Lanka in 21 years, and sees them overtake Australia as the world's No. 1 team.

Set 369 for victory South Africa, who started the day at 38-1, finished on 159 for eight with Vernon Philander holding firm with an unbeaten 27.

That was despite a marathon bowling effort from spinners Rangana Herath and Dilruwan Perera who sent down 89 overs between them, including 54 maidens, to claim all eight South African wickets.

Sri Lanka had to fight not only against the strong defence put up by South Africa but also the weather that interrupted play three times during the day, including in the final session with South Africa on 118-6. Sri Lanka grabbed the wicket of JP Duminy in the first over of the final hour when Perera trapped him lbw for three.

Brief Scores: SL: 421 (Jayawardene 165, Dickwella 72, Mathews 63) and 229/8 dec (Sangakkara 72, Mathews 63*, Morkel 4-45) drew with SA: 282 (Amla 139, Perera 5-69, Herath 4-71) and 159 for 8 (Herath 5-40, Perera 3-60). — Reuters

Gagan Narang celebrates after winning the silver medal in the mens 50m Rifle Prone final event. PTI

Carnoustie, July 28
“I’ve come back from the tomb” — this is not something you wish to hear from anyone, let alone a champion sportsperson. But Gagan Narang says this with a delighted smile on his face after winning the 50m Rifle (prone) silver medal.

The “tomb” that he refers to would be the neck injury he suffered in the immediate aftermath of his bronze medal-winning show at the 2012 London Olympic Games. Narang had won the bronze medal in the 10m air rifle event in London; however, he missed the bus in his favourite event here because he failed to qualify for the Indian team.

Due to that, Narang felt he was “lost” as he competed here. “It's like this — if you're writing on sport all your life, and then are asked to cover crime or business, you'd be lost,” he told The Tribune. “Similarly, being unable to compete in the 10m air rifle event has left me feeling out of place.”

Right after the medal ceremony, he does look a bit lost, and does not look too happy, but he's a cheerful man —soon he's smiling and laughing. He realises that this is a good medal to win because India have never done well in the 50m Rifle (prone) event.

“It's not an event in which we Indians have done well, so it's good to get a silver,” he said. “A gold would have been wonderful, but considering all things, I'm quite happy. I've never won a medal in this event, you know.”

Narang has been seen at the range here over the last few days, carrying a highly specialised camera with telephoto lens, taking photos of shooters, encouraging the younger shooters. But, he said, he hasn't been really as relaxed as he looked. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping," he said, his customary sunny grin on his face. “I've been in touch with my mental trainer, psychologist Vaibhav Agashe. I won't go into the details of how we work, how he helps me, what he tells me, but it's about trying to prepare the best for competition.”

Before today, Narang has never gone back from any CWG with a silver - he's won a total of eight gold medals in 2006 and 2010 CWG, Melbourne and Delhi.

“A gold would have been better," he said. “And a silver is a novelty for me... But all things considered, I'll take it any day!”

Patiala, July 28
The General Assembly of Commonwealth Shooting Federation has unanimously approved the proposal of India to reinstate Pair Events in the Commonwealth Games. Further, the General Assembly, which met in Glasgow, has decided to bring back two pistol events from the next edition of the games.

The decision will go a long way in helping Indian shooters bag more medals, given the recent performances of the Indian shooters in the pair events, including the last CWG. India has one of the biggest numbers of shooters in fray for both the pair and pistol events. “We have really been trying our best to get the Pair events included as these were earlier a part of the CWG and accounted for India's high medal tally,” said an official.

Glasgow, July 28
Vijender Singh (75kg) continued his sublime form to enter the quarterfinals along with gritty L Devendro Singh (49kg).

Vijender, a former Olympic and World Championships bronze-medallist, outpunched Namibia’s Mujandjae Kasuto 3-0 in a lopsided contest to make the last-eight stage.

The 28-year-old, who settled for a bronze in the previous edition of the Games, will now face Trinidad and Tobago’s Aaron Prince.

Such was the former world number one’s domination that he managed a perfect 10 score from every judge in each of the three rounds.

Earlier, Devendro (49kg) advanced to the quarterfinals with a hard-fought win but reigning Asian champion Shiva Thapa (56kg) made a shocking early exit.

Asian Championships silver-medallist Devendro made the quarterfinals after notching up a tough 2-1 victory over Sri Lanka`s Madushan Gamage.

The Indian started off confidently, getting a perfect 10 score from all three judges in the opening three minutes. However, in the next round, Devendro, who looks to drain his opponents with a flurry of punches, was left surprised when Gamage came back strongly to clinch it 29-28.

However, the Indian youngster muzzled the challenge in the deciding three minutes, snatching it 30-28 to be just one more win away from assuring himself of a medal in his debut Commonwealth Games.

On a disappointing note, Shiva Thapa (56kg) went down to Olympic bronze-medallist Michael Conlan of Northern Ireland. Conlan dominated the opening round clinching it 30-28. The second and third rounds were a tad closer but the Irishman held his own to outwit Shiva. Shiva said the warning he received “totally changed the fight”.

“It’s very difficult to come back and win after a warning. We were both using head butts and it`s down to the referee and what, according to him, is correct.” — PTI