Bindra,Narang pair up,hosts eye first gold

India is fielding reigning Olympic champion and world record holder for 10m air rifle pairs.

In a discipline where India are expected to collect their maximum number of medals,there couldnt have been a better way to start the proceedings than fielding the reigning Olympic champion and the world record holder for the very first event — 10m air rifle pairs.

Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang will look to set the tone for a gold rush for the hosts at the Commonwealth Games when they team up at the Karni Singh range on Tuesday. While that is going to be the main theme for India on Tuesday,there will be some interesting sub-plots too: for instance,the rivalry between the two top marksmen.

Beijing gold medalist Bindra needed grace marks to make the team for CWG 2010 ahead of Sanjeev Rajput,who had shot a score of 597 at the Pune trials in August. While he looked happy and relaxed on Monday,Bindra will be conscious of his indifferent form when he takes aim.

In the last few tournaments that he has participated in,Bindra has failed to make the finals. Recently at the Munich world championships,he finished a poor 25th,whereas Narang won bronze and a London Olympics quota place with 597.

The team management,meanwhile,assert that a healthy rivalry was needed to make a great squad,but the fact is that Narang has been winning all the battles every time the duo have crossed path on a rifle range.

Tomorrow they are playing for India together and day after theyll be fighting with themselves to top the event. If at all it is good that we have competition within the team. Whoever shoots well will get the gold, national coach Sunny Thomas said on Monday.

Also on show on Tuesday will be world champion Tejaswani Sawant,who teams up with Lajja Goswami in 50m rifle three positions pairs event.

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Deepak Sharma and Omkar Singh will be gunning for gold in the 50m pistol pairs event,while Anisa Sayyed and Rahi Sarnobat 25m pistol pairs will be aiming to add to Indias medal tally up. We have a very good team with five champion shooters in the team. I cant say how many medals well win but Im hoping for good results as we have been training well in Pune. Importantly,most of them are in good form,lets see what happens,but Im confident, Thomas added.

History shooter

Meanwhile,Englands Michael Gault will be opening his bid for more medals at the Commonwealth Games,when he takes the field in the 50m pistol pairs event with Nick Baxter on Tuesday.

Gault has won 15 medals in the previous editions and needs four more to go past Australias Phillip Adam to become the most successful athlete in Games history.