New Delhi, October 08 2010: Rifle shooting ace Gagan Narang picked up his third gold medal, and second pairs, in the Commonwealth Games while the women's archery team grabbed their first as India widened the lead over England in the race for the second spot on the fifth day today.

Narang, who had won the men's 10m air rifle pairs and individual gold medals going into today's competition, added the pairs 50m rifle 3-position gold to his kitty with Imran Hasan Khan, with a Games record to add to the feat.

It was the country's 16th gold after women archers Deepika Kumari, Dola Banerjee and Bombayala Devi Laishram fetched India their 15th title and more medals were primed to be plucked by the Indians during the day.

India's highest gold medal tally, 30, was in Manchester in 2002 while four years later at Melbourne the country's athletes scooped up 22 .

The trio of women archers, forming the recurve team, defeated England 207-206 in a nail-biting final at the Yamuna Sport Complex to provide the country their first gold from the bow-and-arrow range.

The women prevailed over Malaysia 213-185 to set the tune this morning before edging out the English trio in the final.

On Thursday, the Indian compound archers had claimed a silver and a bronze in the men's and women's team events respectively to continue their contribution in increasing the country's tally.

The shooting and archery gold medals helped India widen the lead over England by four but a red-hot race for the second spot in the Games is on among these two nations and Canada who have one gold less than England.

The race is expected to become more intense today with 43 gold medals to be decided during the busiest day in the 11-day Games.

With Australia seemingly having taken an unassailable lead with 32 golds in their kitty, the race for finishing No.2 in the Games has narrowed down to a three-horse race between second-placed India, No.3 England and No.4 Canada.

India have been dominating the shooting range but have also been doing well in disciplines like wrestling and weightlifting as well as archery.

In tennis, men's singles top seed Somdev Devvarman defeated Australia's Matt Ebden 6-3, 6-1 to enter the final while Sania Mirza was set to play in the women's singles against Rogowska Olivia of Australia.

Comment