Pistol snag shoots down Jung's dream

A malfunctioning pistol dashed shooter Samresh Jung's hopes of getting into the Commonwealth Games Hall of Fame alongside two other sporting greats for the most number of gold, as leaders India had their only medalless day from the event on Saturday.

Jung, who had created three new Games record on way to winning a bounty of five gold, one silver and a bronze, lost out in the medal race in the 25m standard pistol final at the Lilydale ranges to finish way down at the ninth spot on the concluding day of the shooting competition.

India, with a rich haul of 16-7-4, remained far ahead of second-placed Australia (9-8-6).

The Indian shooters performed even worse in men's skeet with Amit Sanghi tallying 113 for the 14th place and Baba Prithiviraj Singh Bedi mustering 112 points for the 17th slot.

Jung, eyeing to equal the six-gold hauls of Australian swimmers Ian Thorpe and Susie O'Neill, ended up with 553 (194-179-178).

His pairs partner Ronak Pandit (557) was sixth.

Right from the second shot, Jung's pistol malfunctioned and he could not decipher whether it was an equipment problem or ammunition fault.

"I did not know which was creating problem. I opened the barrel and cleaned the area, poured oil inside and tried to resume shooting. The problem continued and then we changed the ammunition from a different batch. Still, it was misfiring and I lost a lot of ground and could not recover from then on," he said.