India dominate first day of shooting

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HANOI: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives at Noi Baui International Airport here Tuesday. Hillary arrived in Vietnam for talks on boosting trade as the United States bids to shore up its stuttering economy with an Asia-focussed export drive. —

NEW DELHI, Oct 5 (AFP): Olympic title-holder Abhinav Bindra and double world record holder Gagan Narang on Tuesday launched India's gold medal hunt in the Commonwealth Games shooting competition.
India won two golds and a silver in three of the four events slated for the day, taking top honours in the men's 10m air rifle pairs and the women's 25m pistol pairs events and a silver in the 50m pistol men's event.
Bindra and Narang scored a total of 1193 points well ahead of England's James Huckle and Kenny Parr, who won the silver with a total of 1174 points.
Bangaladesh missed the silver by a point settling for a bronze with Mohammed Asif Hossain Khan and Abdullah Hel Baki scoring a total of 1173 points.
The Indian women's pair of Anisa Syyed and Rahi Sarnobat overcame a strong challenge from Australia to win the gold medal in the 25m pistol pairs event.
Australia's Lalita Yauhleuskaya and Linda Ryan won the silver scoring a total of 1146 points. England bagged the bronze through the pair of Julia Lyndall and Gorgs Geikie with a total of 1122 points.
India chief coach Sunny Thomas described his team's performance as "not so bad" but he added that repeating the performance of 26 medals in the previous Games would not be easy.
"It will be difficult. The focus is on performance, the medals will automatically follow," he said.
Bindra completed a golden hat-trick in the event in the Games. He claimed his first pair's gold in Manchester 2002 partnering Sameer Ambekar and then repeated the feat in the company of Narang in the Melbourne Games.
A relieved Bindra said: " It was no cakewalk for us. No competition can be taken lightly. Especially performances at home. There were tremendous expectations, huge pressure. It was not easy for me for sure."
India also broke two games records on Tuesday - the first one by Bindra and Narang who bettered their own record of 1189 set in the Melbourne 2006 games.
"Each 10 is a big task.There are still five more matches to shoot. I will look to keep things simple and take each day at a time," said Narang on being questioned whether he will be the next "Goldfinger" for India.
Pistol shooter Samresh Jung who won five gold medals in Melbourne 2006 was given the acronym for his medal-winning feat.
Anisa Syyed and Rahi Sarnobat bettered the previous games record of 1150 set by Australia's Yauhleuskaya and Ryan in Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games.
The Indian girls who faced a stiff challenge from the Aussie pair were happy to share the limelight with the senior marksmen.
Not at all peturbed by the media attention, Syyed said, "We knew we would win the gold in half precision. Both of us have very good timing."
The Indian 50m men's pistols pairs team, which won a silver, however, admitted that home pressure affected their performance.