Rana gets his eighth gold

Rana, who has made no bones about the fact that he doesn8217;t fancy rapidfire pistol shooting, said after his eighth gold in the competition that he may give rapid fire a skip in future. He said that he would want to concentrate more on his favourite event, centre fire pistol, with the Commonwealth Games around the corner.

The Commonwealth Games will be held in Auckland in November followed by Asian Championship in January next. National coach Sunny Thomas agreed with Rana8217;s plans saying that Ved Prakash would be fielded in Rana8217;s place in future. 8220;We will have to give Rana more breathing space.There8217;s too much pressure on him,8221; he said.

Rana 564, Dhaka 564 and Dhyan Singh 561 won the 25m rapid fire team gold with a Saf record score of 1689 points. Pakistan won the silver with 1614 points and Maldives took bronze with 1126 points.

However, the most impressive performance for the Indians came from AP Subbaiah who took the men8217;s free rifle three position individual gold with 1224.6 poits. He smashed the earlier mark of 1222.4 points standing in the name of GM Haider.

Subbaiah had to bring off his best in the final 10 shots to edge out compatriot TC Palangappa who took silver with 1224.00 points. Palangappa also bettered the previous record. India dominated the shooting competition taking 21 gold out of 26 up for grabs.

Clean sweep by paddlers

Chetan Baboor came back strongly after losing the first game to take the men8217;s singles table tennis gold at the Lainchour Covered Hall here today.Baboor got the better of his Indian counterpart Subramanian Raman 18-21, 21-17, 21-13,21-18.

In another all-India affair, Anandita Chakravorty beat Poulomi Ghatak in straight games 21-19, 21-16, 21-19 to take women8217;s singles gold. It was a clean sweep for the Indians in the table tennis competition, as they took all the seven gold medals at stake.

Spikers exact revenge

It was the day of revenge for India. They had been hurting badly after the volleyball league match loss to Pakistan and the record had to be set straight. They did that and in style. With a small group of supporters cheering lustily all through, the charged-up Indians crushed Pakistan in straight sets 25-19, 25-16, 25-18 at the Tripureshwar Covered Hall to take gold.

8220;Hisab barabar ho gaya We have avenged the loss,8221; coach Jagir Singh said as the Indian team.

There was tremendous crowd support for Pakistan at the start of the match, with most of the Nepalese rooting for them. However, as India raced to the first set victory, the crowd felt silent and the Indian section came alive. The Indian supporterswere joined by the Indian women8217;s volleyball team, who also took gold earlier in the day beating Sri Lanka in straight sets.

The Indians had had failed to block some tremendous smashing by Pakistan captain Abdul Rahim and Ghulam Abbas. They changed strategy and started with Thulasi Reddy as the setter. Reddy was the centre around whom today8217;s improved performance revolved. His quiet, assured play made a lot of difference.

Taller payers, Tommy Joseph and MS Rajesh, were brought in as blockers and captain Amir Singh was used as the counter. The Indians blocked better and sold the dummy well to get most of their smashes in.