[caption id="attachment_175767" align="alignnone" width="550"]
Shreyasi Singh celebrates her win in the women's double trap finals on day seven of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games at Belmont Shooting Centre on April 11.[/caption]
Gold Coast, April 11 (IANS): Indian shooters enjoyed another fruitful day at the 21st Commonwealth Games as Shreyasi Singh won gold in the women's Double Trap event while Ankur Mittal and Om Mitharwal took bronze in their respective men's categories here on Wednesday.
Shreyasi edged out Emma Cox of Australia in a shoot-off to win the title after both shooters had finished the final round on 96 points each.
Cox found the target only once during the shoot-off but the Indian held her nerves to score twice and claim the gold.
Varsha Varman, the second Indian in the fray, missed out on the bronze by a narrow margin. She scored 86 to finish fourth, just a single point behind bronze medallist Linda Pearson of Scotland.
Among the men, Mittal took bronze in men's Double Trap and Om finished third in men's 50 metre Pistol.
These medals took India's tally to 24, with 11 of them coming in the shooting disciplines.
Shreyasi had a bright start, scoring 24 with her first shot to take the lead. But she slipped to the third spot after the second shot with Linda taking the lead followed by Cox.
Varsha meanwhile, climbed to the fourth spot after the second shot and held on till the lead.
Linda could only manage to score 18 with her third shot to slip by a couple of spots. Cox fired an excellent 27 to take the lead while Shreyasi scored 22 to go second.
Cox however, stumbled during the dramatic fourth and final round. Shreyasi was among the first batch of shooters, scoring 25.
Cox was in the driver's seat at that time and Shreyasi looked destined for a lesser medal. But as luck would have it, wind conditions changed suddenly, it became cloudy and Emma only manage to score 18 which meant she was tied with the Indian at the top.
The final round clearly got to the Australian as Shreyasi confidently nailed the first pair of targets in the sudden death while Emma missed one to give India the gold.
Later, Mittal earned a bronze medal in the men's Double Trap event, scoring 53 points in the final to finish 10 points ahead of compatriot Ashab Mohammed, who was fifth.
Scotland's David MacMath won the gold medal with a CWG record score of 74, while Tim Kneale from the Isle of Man claimed silver with 70 points.
During the qualification round, Ashab was in good form during the qualification stage, scoring 137 to take the second spot behind McMath, while Ankur was fifth at the end of the qualification round with 133. But Ankur gathered his composure in the final and shone brighter.
In the six-man final, Ankur bagged all the 10 points in the first series of five hits. In the second series, he got eight points, while the third series took his points tally to 28. Ankur continued the good work in the fourth series, earning nine points.
He followed that up with another nine-pointer series as he eliminated Ashab, who totalled 43 points after the five series.
Only three shooters, Ankur, Kneale and MacMath competed in the sixth series in which Ankur had the worst performance, bagging only seven points which took his points tally to 53. At the end of the six series, Kneale had 54 points, while MacMath got 55 points.
In the two-series play-off for the gold medal, Kneale got 17 points, while MacMath got 19 points. Kneale ended up with 70 points to get the silver medal, while MacMath ran away with the gold medal with a meet record total of 74.
Pakistan's Aamer Iqbal was fifth with 31 points, while Australian James Willett got 23 points to finish last.
In the men's 50m Pistol, Om registered a score of 201.1 in the final.
Daniel Repacholi of Australia took the gold with a new CWG record of 227.2. Shakil Ahmed of Bangladesh took silver with 220.5.
Defending champion Jitu Rai, the other Indian in the fray, had a disappointing outing.
The reigning Asian Games champion registered a decidedly below par 105 to finish at the bottom of the eight-man final.
Om had a good start in the final, scoring 111.3 after the first round in Stage 2 to take the second spot behind Singapore's Swee Hon Lim.
But Daniel scored 10.0 and 10.1 to take the lead in the next round. The local favourite then produced a string of consistent scores to blow away the opposition and hold on to the pole position till the end.
