Shooters claim India's first
gold at C'wealth Games

Abhinav Bindra and Sameer Ambekar won first the gold medal for India at the 17th Commonwealth Games at Manchester on Saturday.

The duo were comfortable gold medal winners, with a combined score of 1184 in the men's 10 metre air rifle pairs at Bisley, which is a new Commonwealth Games record.

Malaysia's Mohd Erman Zakaria and Mohd Hamelaay Abd Mutalib took silver with 1164 points, four ahead of Chris Hector and Nigel Wallace of England, who were bronze medal winners in Kuala Lumpur four years ago.

The 19-year-old Bindra, who was the youngest ever Olympic shooter when he competed at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, described his winning effort as "the icing on the cake".

"We were very confident. Both our averages are pretty high so we knew we could do it," he added.

Ambekar, aged 21, said: "We work together and coach each other. We are hoping to also do well in the singles."

The 20-member Indian shooting squad is taking part in 28 events at the Games, hoping to improve upon the tally of four gold, two silver and one bronze medal it won in the 1998 edition, in Kuala Lumpur.