Heartbreak for Jung; Narang wins gold

Samresh Jung let go his chance of winning a record seven gold as he allowed his mind to waver in the 25m centre fire pistol tie-breaker and settled for bronze while Gagan Narang and Abhinav Bindra added to India's bounty with a thrilling 1-2 finish in the 50m Rifle 3 positions of the 18th Commonwealth Games shooting competition on Friday.

Jung, who was the leading Indian competitor with five gold going into the event, was in peak form in the precision and rapid round to tally 578 points, which tied him with Singapore's Shaw Ming On and Gregory Yelavich of New Zealand.

The 35-year old Indian had 290 in the precision rounds, which the best among the three. On and Yelavich made up for the deficit with 289 and 290 in the rapid fire where Jung had 288.

In the shoot-out, however, the Indian could muster only 44 -- he dropped out of the first phase -- while On produced a masterly 144 and YelavichYelavich had an equally impressive 141.

It gave Singapore its first gold at the Games.

Another Indian in the fray, Jaspal Rana, who also holds Games record of 583, ended up fourth with 577.

Jung said he let the thought of record medal tally affect him in the final round.

"It came to my mind, maybe I put additional pressure on myself," he said.

Jung has won gold in the 50m and 10m air pistol individual events and three more in the 25m standard, 25m centre fire and 25m rapid fire pistol pairs events.

The Delhi shooter still has 25m standard pistol individual event to go and finishig at the top there would see him equal the Games recod of six gold currently held by Australian swimmers Ian Thorpe and Susie O' Neill.

Narang, who already has the men's 10m air rifle pairs gold with Bindra, won with a Games final record of 1261.4 points. His aggregate of 1163 in the qualification round was also a Games record.

The Hyderabad-based shooter tallied 394, 389 and 380 points in prone, standing and kneeling positions in the qualification rounds, which was also his personal best tally.

The previous games record of 1157 by Canadian Mart Kleep had stood since 1990.

Bindra aggregated 1248.6 (1151+97.6) to claim second spot.

Australian Ben Burges got the bronze medal with a total of 1238.2 (1150+88.2).

This was India's 16th gold in shooting at Melbourne out of the 20 yellow medals it has claimed so far.

Meanwhile, Arti Singh Rao finished sixth in the women's skeet event.

Andri Eleftheriou of Cyprus won the gold while Lauryn Mark of Australia bagged the silver. Pinky Le Grelle of England claimed the bronze.