Commonwealth Games 2014: Jitu, Gurpal make it 1-2 for India in men's 50m pistol event

Glasgow: Indian shooters continued their dominance at the Barry Buddon Shooting Range with 'Pistol King' Jitu Rai and Gurpal Singh bagging a gold and silver respectively in the men's 50m pistol event here today.

26-year-old Rai, world No 4 in the event, shot a total of 194.1 to bag his first Commonwealth Games gold on debut while Gurpal had an aggregate of 187.2 to win the silver, his first international medal. Australia's Daniel Repacholi was third. With the two medals, India's medal tally from the Barry Buddon Shooting Center has shot up to 11 (4, 6, 1), three more than England who have eight including three gold medals.

Nepal-born Rai, who won a gold (in 10m air pistol) and a silver (in 50m pistol) in the World Cup last month, was third in the first series but then recovered quickly and led the field throughout after that. By the halfway mark of the elimination stage which has two shots for each series, Rai had taken a lead of 5.2 from his nearest rival. That included a magnificent 10.8 in his 10th shot. By the seventh round,

Rai had taken a huge seven point lead and at that stage it was clear who would win the gold. Gurpal shot up to second spot in the last three rounds but could not catch up his senior colleague who won the gold with a huge 6.9 difference.

At one time, Gurpal went out of medal bracket but recovered in fine fashion after shooting just 7.2 by coming up with a series of impressive shots to finish for silver.