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Alok Sinha
Kathmandu, Oct 3: Jaspal Rana was bang on target as he made it eight out of eight in the SAF Games shooting competiton at the BIS Complex here today. Rana took gold in men's 25m rapid fire pistol, though not without a fight from the man whose SAF record he bettered today -- Banwarilal Dhaka.
Rana logged 658.2 points while Dhaka followed him close at 657.7 points. Dhaka's earlier record stood at 651.4 points.
Rana, who has made no bones about the fact that he doesn't fancy rapidfire pistol shooting, said after his eighth gold in the competition that he may give rapid fire a skip in future. He said that he would want to concentrate more on his favourite event, centre fire pistol, with the Commonwealth Games around the corner.
The Commonwealth Games will be held in Auckland in November followed by Asian Championship in January next. National coach Sunny Thomas agreed with Rana's plans saying that Ved Prakash would be fielded in Rana's place in future. ``We will have to give Rana more breathing space.There's too much pressure on him,'' he said.
Rana (564), Dhaka (564) and Dhyan Singh (561) won the 25m rapid fire team gold with a Saf record score of 1689 points. Pakistan won the silver with 1614 points and Maldives took bronze with 1126 points.
However, the most impressive performance for the Indians came from AP Subbaiah who took the men's free rifle three position individual gold with 1224.6 poits. He smashed the earlier mark of 1222.4 points standing in the name of GM Haider.
Subbaiah had to bring off his best in the final 10 shots to edge out compatriot TC Palangappa who took silver with 1224.00 points. Palangappa also bettered the previous record. India dominated the shooting competition taking 21 gold out of 26 up for grabs.
Clean sweep by paddlers
Chetan Baboor came back strongly after losing the first game to take the men's singles table tennis gold at the Lainchour Covered Hall here today.Baboor got the better of his Indian counterpart Subramanian Raman 18-21, 21-17, 21-13,21-18.
In another all-India affair, Anandita Chakravorty beat Poulomi Ghatak in straight games 21-19, 21-16, 21-19 to take women's singles gold. It was a clean sweep for the Indians in the table tennis competition, as they took all the seven gold medals at stake.
Spikers exact revenge
It was the day of revenge for India. They had been hurting badly after the volleyball league match loss to Pakistan and the record had to be set straight. They did that and in style. With a small group of supporters cheering lustily all through, the charged-up Indians crushed Pakistan in straight sets 25-19, 25-16, 25-18 at the Tripureshwar Covered Hall to take gold.
``Hisab barabar ho gaya (We have avenged the loss),'' coach Jagir Singh said as the Indian team.
There was tremendous crowd support for Pakistan at the start of the match, with most of the Nepalese rooting for them. However, as India raced to the first set victory, the crowd felt silent and the Indian section came alive. The Indian supporterswere joined by the Indian women's volleyball team, who also took gold earlier in the day beating Sri Lanka in straight sets.
The Indians had had failed to block some tremendous smashing by Pakistan captain Abdul Rahim and Ghulam Abbas. They changed strategy and started with Thulasi Reddy as the setter. Reddy was the centre around whom today's improved performance revolved. His quiet, assured play made a lot of difference.
Taller payers, Tommy Joseph and MS Rajesh, were brought in as blockers and captain Amir Singh was used as the counter. The Indians blocked better and sold the dummy well to get most of their smashes in.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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