Tejaswini and Abhinav opens India's gold tally in Australia Cup

Sydney, Apr 22 (UNI) Indian shooters had an outstanding day at office as both Tejaswini Sawant and Abhinav Bindra clinched gold in their respective events at the the Australia Cup here.

Sawant shot a score of 588 to finish on the top at the women's 50m rifle prone event, while her other compatriots in the event Anjali Bhagwat (584), Meena Kumari (579), Deepali Deshpande (578) and Avneet Kaur Sindhu (577) all had a disappointing outing and finished outside the medal contention.

The silver in this event went to Kurkova of Czech Republic (587), while Jacobsen of Denmark won the bronze with a score of 586.

Meanwhile, in the men's 50m rifle prone event Sanjev Rajput won the bronze and made a national record in the process with a score of 699.1 (597+102.1).

The gold in this category went to Britain's M Babb 700.6 (596+104.6) and the silver was won by Australia's Warren Potent 700.2 (596+104.2).

In the men's 10m rifle prone event, world number two Abhinav Bindra, who was making a come back from a back injury after a gap of eight months, won the second gold for India.

India's first World Champion, Abhinav has already secured a berth in next year's Beijing Olympics, and has also confirmed his participation in two the ISSF World Cups in Sydney, Australia from April 27, and in Bangkok from May 5.

UNI