Gagan Narang does India proud in 10M Air Rifle - wins Bronze

Ace marksman Gagan Narang, did India proud by clinching the bronze medal in the men's 10m air rifle event in London Olympics 2012.  Narang shot 103.1 in a gripping ten-shot finals for an aggregate of 701.1 after scoring 598 in the qualifying round in which also he stood third.

The ace shooter supported by the Olympic Quest was the first Indian to qualify for the Olympics 2012.  Gagan Narang's family hails from Panipat in Haryana.  Gagan Narang is a gold medalist in the Afro Asian games, 2003 in Hyderabad on October 26, 2003 in Men's 10m air rifle competition.  In a pre-Olympic event in Hannover, Germany, Gagan shot an air rifle score higher than the world record, 704.3 as opposed to 703.1 set by Thomas Farnik of Austria in the World Cup 2006. Gagan Narang added 4 gold medals to the Indian tally at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. In the Men's 10 m air rifle singles event, he shot a perfect 600 which was a new record. Gagan also clinched a silver medal in his pet event at the Asian Games 2010. He also combined with Abhinav Bindra and Sanjeev Rajput to provide the country with another silver, in the team event behind champions China.

Today he did the Nation proud by winning the bronze medal, as there were bright prospects of him doing even better.  Gagan was just behind the silver medallist Niccolo Campriani of Italy who scored 701.5, while the gold medallist Alin George Moldoveanu of Romania was at 702.1.  Narang was on course to a silver, but  slipped a bit and had to fight for the bronze medal with China's Wang Tao who finished fourth with 700.4. After returning poor scores of 9.9 and 9.5 in the seventh and eighth attempts, Narang pulled up his socks to seal the bronze with impressive scores of 10.3 and 10.7.

It was sad however that defending champion Abhinav Bindra suffered a shocking exit with his dismal show in the preliminaries in which he stood 16th out of 47 contestants with a score of 594 out of 600.

Narang's bronze medal is  Third one for India in Shooting events, following Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore's silver in double trap in Athens 2004 and Bindra's gold in the last Games at Beijing.  This is  also India's eighth individual medal in the Olympic Games.

The Haryana government  has  announced a reward of Rs.one crore for shooter Gagan Narang .  Even though Narang does not belong to Haryana, he has been given the reward under the category of sportspersons from the state as his family roots are from the northern state.  Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda announced the reward for Narang immediately after he won bronze.

10 metre air rifle is an International Shooting Sports Federation (ISSF) shooting event, shot over a distance of 10 metres (10.94 yards) from a standing position with a 4.5 mm (0.177 in) calibre air rifle with a maximum weight of 5.5 kg (12.13 lb). The use of specialised clothing is allowed to improve the stability of the shooting position and prevent chronic back injury which can be caused by the asymmetric offset load on the spine when the rifle is held in position. It is one of the ISSF-governed shooting events included in theOlympic games.

The Gold medalist  Romanian Moldoveanu held his nerve with a final shot of 10.3 to hold off his rival, who finished just 0.6 behind.

Indians sure have reasons to celebrate today

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.