Ace pistol shooter Vijay Kumar notched up a golden double for the second time to end his campaign with a rich haul of five gold medals, while Asian Games bronze-winning swimmer Sandeep Sejwal signed off with four yellow metals on day seven of the 35th National Games on Saturday.
In the overall scheme of things, however, the Services Sports Control Board (SSCB) remained on course for a hat-trick of titles. Dominating the Games in almost all disciplines, SSCB have accumulated 42 gold, 12 silver and 13 bronze medals to total 67. A distant second on the table is Maharashtra (80) with 26 gold, 34 silver and 26 bronze medals. Haryana held the third spot with 26 gold, 18 silver and seven bronze.
At the shooting range in Thiruvananthapuram, Vijay stood head and shoulders above competition to bag both the team and the individual gold medals in the 25m rapid fire pistol.
In the team event, the London Olympics silver-medallist combined with Pemba Tamang and Gurpreet Singh to clinch the gold for SSCB with a total score of 1761. Following SSCB were Haryana with a score of 1691 through the troika of Harpreet Singh, Rahul Panwar and Wazeer Singh Rathee.
The bronze medal went to the Maharashtra threesome of Shivraj Sase, Ronak Pandit and Akshay Ashtaputre, who tallied 1682.
Vijay then showed his class in the individual round as well, refusing to be distracted by the brief halt in the proceedings caused by a glitch in the scoring system. He held his nerve to walk away with the top honours in a shoot-off with Punjab's Harpreet Singh, who took the silver with a tally of 23 against Vijay's 28. Maharashtra's Shivraj Sase settled for the bronze medal with a score of 19.
"After the London Olympics I was told several times that 25m rapid fire belongs to me, I am glad that I could live upto these expectations. Injuries have affected me badly but I am glad to have done so well here. Shoot offs are common in this event and I am just so happy to be back in reckoning after an injury layoff. I was trying to ensure than I stuck to my technique and it got me the desired results," Vijay said after his triumph.
"I am now targetting good performances in the World Cups later this year and this is a huge boost to my confidence after the setback of injuries that I faced after London Olympics," added the Army man.
