India continue dominant show at Commonwealth Championships

India took their gold medal count to five in four days of the Commonwealth Shooting Championships 2017, with Olympian Prakash Nanjappa and double-trapper Ankur Mittal winning the yellow metal here on Friday.

Prakash led yet another Indian clean sweep at the Men's 50 metre Pistol with World Cup Final Bronze medallist Amanpreet Singh winning the silver and Jitu Rai his second bronze of the competition.

Ankur Mittal added more glitter to his best-ever international year with the Double Trap gold while Sreyasi Singh also won silver in the women's Double Trap to round off another profitable day's outing for India.

India has so far won 15 medals at the competition.

It was Jitu, who topped the qualification round of the 50M Pistol with a 559 with Amanpreet qualifying in third with 543 and Prakash in fourth with 542.

It was the same pattern at the start of the eight-man final with Jitu again the strongest off the blocks. Prakash in-fact was in fifth place after the first five-shot series but after the second series it was clear that the race was going to be between the three Indians, with the trio pulling away from the rest of the field.

The lead fluctuated for most parts between Jitu and Amanpreet, but Prakash caught up from the 18th shot of the 24-shot final, pipped Jitu by 0.2 at the end of the 20th and beat Amanpreet by 0.4 eventually to emerge triumphant.

Three Indians also qualified for the men's Double Trap while two qualified in the women's event.

Md. Asab was the best Indian qualifier shooting 140 out of 150 to be placed third in qualifying. Ankur shot 138 to qualify in fifth place while Sangram Dahiya grabbed the sixth and final qualifying berth with a 135.

In the women's event, Shreyasi qualified in second place with a score of 96 out of 120 while Seema Tomar shot 84 to qualify in fifth place.

The medals however, came to Ankur who won the gold beating England's Matthew French in the men's Double Trap while Shreyasi managed a creditable Silver in the women's event.

--IANS

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