Shooting: Gault holds nerve to edge out Indians

Terry Marks
Thursday 01 August 2002 00:00 BST
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Mick Gault lit up the shooting yesterday at Bisley, 216 miles from the main action in Manchester, with a nerveless finish.

The Sheffield-born civil servant won his seventh Commonwealth gold and had no doubt it was the most dramatic.

The Indians, with eight golds, have dominated at Bisley but they cracked under the relentless pressure from the former Royal Air Force man.

His hopes of retaining the title he won in Malaysia looked in tatters as he trailed in fourth place with three of the 70 shots remaining. One shot later the 48-year-old was joint third and then came the moment of truth.

His seven rivals had fired their penultimate shots. Then Gault shot for the third time and scored a 10.8, a fraction off the perfect 10.9 and he was second behind India's Samaresh Jung. The crowd let out a roar and it was all down to the last shot.

This time Gault fired rapidly for a 10.1, Jung's nerve failed him as he shot a 9.4 and third-placed Indian Jaspal Rana, who was also in contention, bettered them both with a 10.4. But it was not enough. Gault took gold on 675 out of a possible 700, Jung silver on 674.8 and Rana on 674.7 in a heart-pounding finish.

An emotional Gault said: "Brilliant, fantastic. This medal is definitely the best yet. I am over the moon about it."

He acknowledged the part the partisan crowd played in his success. "You hear it all the time in the swimming pool and it was fantastic," he said.

"I have never had anything like it in my life before. I just had to win it for the crowd."

Silver medallist Jung, was less responsive: "I am too busy to talk. I have to go and practice," he said. Gault's gold was the only home medal of a day which began with victory for 15-year-old Asif Hossain Khan, from Bangladesh, in the 10m air rifle singles final in his first international event overseas.

He beat 19-year-old Indian favourite Abhinav Bindra into second place and secured his country's first medal of the Games.

In the only other event completed yesterday Australia's Michael Diamond took the individual gold medal from countrymen Adam Vella. Three British shooters made it into the six for the final round but Michael Wixey of Wales was fourth with Northern Ireland's Thomas Allen fifth and Scotland's David Gillies sixth.

England's Glyn Barnett led the open full-bore rifle singles after day two of the event, which finishes with the third stage tomorrow. His two-round total 255.44 put him fractionally ahead of Northern Ireland's David Calvert on 255.41.

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