Kanungo takes one, State teams grab two golds

The air pistol 10m for women was won by Maharashtra’s Sheila Kanungo with 474.2 points. Baljeet Kaur (469.8) of Army won the silver and Harvinder Kaur Waraich (468.5) of Maharashtra the bronze.

Apart from Kanungo’s individual gold, Maharashtra got two golds in team events. Gani Shaikh (484), Abdul Majid Shaikh (502) and Raunak Pandit (531) aggregated 1517 in the standard pistol 25m for men.

Maharashtra’s third gold of the day came in the women’s 10m air pistol shooting when Vandana Nakkar (372), Waraich (370) and Kanungo (381) totalled a gold-winning 1123.

In the 25m standard pistol (men’s), the trio of Jaspal Rana, Subhash Rana and Balbir Singh fell to fifth spot, mainly due Balbir’s 477 — the lowest among 21 contestants.

Army’s Ved Parkash (550), Tamang (555) and Mahaveer Singh claimed gold with an aggregate of 1656, while Navy, comprising T K Sikdar (545), S Kumar (561) and M Kumar (539), aggregated 1645 for silver.

Earlier, Rana (CISF) scored 576 to win gold in the 25m standard pistol. S Kumar (Navy, 561) bagged silver and Vivek Singh (Indian Airlines, 560) bronze.

Rs 5 lakh award

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal announced a cash reward of Rs 15 lakh for any shooter bringing home an Olympic gold medal from the Sydney 2000 Games.

He did not say if silver or bronze medal winners would get any rewards.