Saina Nehwal, bronze medal winner in badminton
Badminton Player Saina Nehwal Wins Bronze Medal
By TNN
NEW DELHI: Saina Nehwal added another bronze medal for India as her Chinese opponent Xin Wang retired in the second game with the latter leading 21-18, 1-0 at London Olympics on Saturday.
Wang got herself injured in the end of the first game while leading the game 20-18.
Saina went down 13-21, 13-21 to the tall, quicksilver Chinese girl Wang Yihan in the women’s singles semifinals on Friday.
——————————————————————————————————————————————-
Vijay Kumar, silver medal winner for pistol shooting
Pistol Shooter Vijay Kumar Wins Silver Medal
By Economic Times
Sharp shooter Vijay Kumar today fought a nerve-wracking battle with five other top marksmen to clinch the silver medal in the men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol event at the Olympic Games here today.
Kumar beat back the challenge of world champion Alexei Klimov of Russia, Chinese duo of Ding Feng and Zhang Jian and German Christian Reitz in the 40-shot final to finish runner-up in a thrilling finale behind Cuba’s Leuris Pupo who shot his way to the gold with a world record equalling score of 34.
The 26-year-old army subedar from Himachal Pradesh found the target 30 times out of 40 attempts in the series comprising eight rounds of five shots each.
This is India’s second medal in the ongoing quadrennial extravaganza after fellow marksman Gagan Narang’s bronze in the 10m Air Rifle event on July 30. This was also the country’s fourth medal in shooting in Olympic history.
The other medal winners are Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (silver in 2004 Athens) , Abhinav Bindra (gold in 2008 Beijing) besides Narang.
Kumar started with a bang, hitting the target all five times and kept himself in the hunt for a medal by consistently finding the target.
After a perfect five out of five at the start, Kumar, a double gold medallist in the 2010 Commonwealth Games, found the target four times in the second and third series, but missed it twice in the fourth.
He came back strongly by finding the target four times in the next three rounds and assured himself of a silver. In the last round after Pupo shot four to clinch the gold, Kumar seemed to relax a bit and missed three targets.
The bronze medal was won by Feng with a tally of 27.
In the final, Kumar was assured of a medal after the the elimination of the trio of Klimov (23), Jian (17) and Christian (13) leaving himself, Pupo and Feng in the fray.
The silver was in his bag when Feng missed twice in the seventh round and Kumar replied with four.
Kumar had earlier lifted the Indian shooting team’s spirit after the flop show by Narang, who failed to qualify for the final of the 50m Rifle Prone, by entering the finals of his event through the preliminaries.
En route to his total score of 585, Kumar became the second shooter to break the previous Olympic record of 583 to give a hint of his potential during the second stage of qualification.
Placed fourth in the list, Kumar, who had scored 293 in stage 1 of the qualification yesterday, shot a series of 98 97 97 in the second stage to take his total score to 585.
He shot a sequence of 99 96 98 at the Royal Artillery Barracks.
The Army man then successfully competed with five shooters for a medal.
Pre-Games medal favourite Ronjan Sodhi had yesterday failed to qualify for the double trap event.
Klimov had created a new world record by shooting 592 but he could not replicate that in the final.
He scored a total of 592 after Stage 2, breaking the existing world record of 591 and Olympic record of 583, with 294 points in Stage 1 and a staggering 298 out of 300 in Stage 2.
——————————————————————————————————————————————-
Gagan Narang, bronze medal winner for rifle shooting
Rifle Shooter Gagan Narang Wins Bronze Medal
By Suyash Srivastava, Zee News
Gagan Narang had everything in shooting to his name barring an Olympic medal. His disappointment of missing out at Beijing was always apparent in his interviews. But, at the London Games, Narang got his much awaited and much cherished Olympic medal.
A bronze medal to his name and he has probably got everything in shooting now.
As the Indian fans went in a state of shock seeing 2008 Beijing Olympics gold medalist Abhinav Bindra get knocked out in the qualifying round, Narang had made it to the finals with an impressive qualifying score. Bindra who made the entire country proud by winning the first ever gold medal in the individual category in 2008 couldn’t defend his title but Narang was still in the reckoning.
India’s only individual Olympic gold medallist Bindra failed to qualify as he shot 594 to finish 16th out of 47 contestants.
There was a ray of hope as Narang lived up to the expectations in the qualifying round. As Indian athletes failed one after another at the London Games 2012, Gagan Narang rose to the occasion as he shot bronze in the 10m Air Rifle event.
The Hyderabad based marksman scored 598 points which got him the third spot, just a point behind the number one and two qualifiers – World No. 1 Niccolo Campriani of Italy and Romania`s Moldoveanu Alin George who both came up with an Olympic-record equalling 599.
Narang finished with a 10.3 and then a 10.7 to snatch a bronze medal away from China`s Wang Tao. It was a relief for the man who had narrowly missed a medal at the Beijing Games. As the crowd cheered for Abhinav Bindra at the Beijing Games, Narang stood in utter disappointment having missed the podium by the margin of one point.
This time he made sure that he didn’t go through a similar experience. He came up with a formidable performance and defeated the best in the business to end India’s drought at 2012 Olympics.
Narang’s seventh and eighth shot produced scores of 9.9 and 9.5 but he bounced back to seal the bronze with impressive scores of 10.3 and 10.7. The 29-year-old fell two short of his world record score of 600. The man from Hyderabad is the only shooter to have shot a possible 600 twice.
With Narang’s Bronze medal, it is for the third time in row that an Indian shooter has won a medal at the Olympics. Double trap shooter Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore won the silver in 2004, Bindra created history by becoming the first Indian to bag a gold medal in the individual category in 2008, and now Narang has bagged a bronze, India’s first medal at the 2012 London Olympics.
The third day at the London Olympics will be remembered for the resilience shown by the Indian athletes. In a country with a population over a billion, Narang clinched India’s first medal.
Narang’s medal might not shine as much as Bindra’s gold, but at the London Olympics, he has certainly made the country proud by marking them at the medal’s tally.
The medal should be a huge relief for Narang who was labeled of being ‘mentally weak’ to deliver at the biggest sporting event. He finally silenced the critics as he mounted the podium with his head held high.
