Times News Network

Melbourne, Mar 17: Medals poured in for India as shooters launched their campaign in spectacular fashion winning three gold and one silver on the opening day of the event at the 18th Commonwealth Games here today.

Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang won the gold medal in the men's 10m air rifle pairs event and set a new Games record with a total of 1189.

Their women counterparts Tejaswini Sawant and Avneet Kaur Sidhu also grabbed the yellow metal aggregating 791 at the Wellsford Rifle Range at Bendigo.

Saroja Kumari Jhuthu and Sushma Rana repeated their air rifle mates' performance in the women's 50m air pistol pair event claiming the third gold medal with an overall score of 1140.

Samresh Jung and Vivek Singh bagged the silver medal amassing 1082 points in the men's 50m pistol pair event at Melbourne International shooting Club.

Bindra and Narang fired excellent individual scores of 591 and 598 respectively ahead of Bangladesh's Mohammad Asif Hossain Khan and Anjan Singha, who scored 1181.

Bindra and Narang finished with 1189 points erasing the Games record of 1184 set by Bindra himself in Sameer Ambekar's company in Manchester in 2002.

The bronze went to the Singapore duo of Ong Jun Hong and Zhang Jin who finished with 1177.