Narang shrugs off early irritant to land India first gold

Early in the morning,Narang had trouble entering the venue as he tried to use one of the side entrances,which had been blocked by the authorities so that they could monitor a single-entry point. Narang finally found his way in through the main entrance,just about making his event,scheduled for a 9 am start,in time.

“He (Narang) had entered the venue from the side entrance on Wednesday. So he was trying to do it again today as well but was stopped by the authorities manning that gate. He reached in time for the competition,” NRAI secretary Rajeev Bhatia said.

Narang shook off the minor issue to shoot an individual score of 599 — a meet record — for a combined score of 1193 along with team mate Raghunath to fetch India’s first gold at the meet. England’s James Huckle and Ken Parr Jr took silver with a combined score of 1185,while the Bangladesh pair of Asif Hossain and Shovon Choudhary clinched bronze with 1182.

Anthem glitch

Later in the afternoon,there was another glitch at the tournament,the first of many such events leading up to the Commonwealth Games. Anisa Sayyed and Annuraj Singh — who had just collected India’s second team gold of the day in women’s 25m pistol badge and pairs — were waiting for the Indian national anthem to be played after having received their medals. Instead,the Australian anthem began.

“Everything cannot be expected to be perfect as this is a test event. Mistakes will happen,” Bhatia said. The Indian anthem began a few seconds later. “We’re using a compact disc that has 65 national anthems and if I am not wrong,Australia’s is the 64th on it,while India’s is the 63rd. They must have played the wrong number,” he added.

Bapu Vanzare and Viraj Singh took silver in 50 metre pistol badge and pairs. Michael Gault and Nick Baxter of England won gold with a combined score of 1082. The Indians managed 1059,while the Australian pair of Alfio Casagrande and Janek Janksi clinched bronze with 1030.

India could have added another silver to their tally — in the 50 metre rifle 3 position. Lajja Goswami and Tejaswini Sawant were tied with Jennifer Corish and Sian Corish of Wales at 1135 but fell behind in the best of 10s score to settle for a bronze. Scotland’s Jennifer Mcintosh and Kay Copland bagged the gold.