Malaysia's Hui Chuen Png performs her solo synchronised swimming routine at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne yesterday. - Reuters
MELBOURNE, (AP):
OLYMPIC CYCLING champion Ryan Bayley and swimming world record holders Libby Lenton and Leisel Jones were beaten to a Commonwealth Games gold medal target by an Indian marksman.
Samaresh Jung became the first double gold medalist at the 2006 Melbourne Games with two pistol shooting pairs titles within four hours yesterday.
MISSING HER OWN MARK
Jones was next, although she had longer to wait. She added the 200-metre breaststroke title to Friday's win in the 50, just missing her own world mark and visibly gasping for oxygen at the end.
Her time of two minutes, 20.72 seconds was 0.18 seconds outside the record she set in late January.
Lenton won the 100 freestyle in 53.54 seconds, the third-fastest time ever for the event, then helped the women's 4x200 freestyle relay to gold. She had targeted seven gold medals here she now has two golds and a silver from three events.
Former world record holder Jodie Henry and Alice Mills were second and third in Australia's fourth 1-2-3 shutout in the women's competition.
"It was probably one of the scariest finals that I ever had to swim in because I've had my toughest competition here," said Lenton. "I've really struggled in the past racing Jodie and Alice. That's the one thing I wanted to change in this race."
The Australians won five of the nine swimming gold medals yesterday and had eight gold and 28 overall in the pool, although only one of the winners is male, reflecting the absence of Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett.
England's men have four swimming gold including a 4x200 relay victory that ended Australia's 52-year Commonwealth reign in that event.
Gregor Tait's win in the 200 backstroke gave Scotland their second men's gold in the pool and South Africa's Roland Schoeman was under record pace for most of the 50 butterfly final before finishing just outside in 23.34 seconds.
REPEATED EFFORT
Australia have won 23 of the 51 gold medals awarded across all sports in three days.
In the gold medal rankings, England were next with eight, India had seven, Scotland had four, South Africa with three, while New Zealand and Canada had two apiece.
Ryan Bayley repeated his double-gold effort from the 2004 Athens Olympics, adding the sprint title to his victory in the keiren. He won those golds in the opposite order in Athens, where the focus on him was on his junk food diet.
England claimed two cycling golds, with Victoria Pendleton upsetting Australian Anna Meares in the women's sprint and the men's team pursuit shading Australia by almost three seconds.
It was the first since 1990 Australia lost the team pursuit, although they were missing Olympic champion and world record holders Brad McGee, Graeme Brown, Brett Lancaster and Luke Roberts who were not released by their professional teams.
Australia will be number one in triathlon for the first time at a major multi-sport event.
Emma Snowsill ended the gold medal drought and Brad Kahlefeldt followed that up with a win in the men's race. World champion Snowsill finished in one hour, 58 minutes and 2.6 seconds, ahead of New Zealand trio Samantha Warriner, Andrea Hewitt and Debbie Tanner.
National triathlon coach declared the gold medal curse on his athletes had been quashed: "Ding dong, the witch is dead." Proving that, Kahlefeldt was never challenged over the last half of the run, finishing in 1:49.16 after slowing down to grab an Australian flag and high-five spectators at the end.
The Australians bookended Canada with gold and bronze in both men's and women's gymnastics all-around finals.
Jung, who is chasing eight medals at the Melbourne games, kept India ahead of Australia in shooting.
He combined with Vivek Singh to win the men's 10m air pistol pairs. Jung and Singh shot 1,154, finishing two points ahead of England's Nick Baxter and Mick Gault.
The 51-year-old Gault equalled the England record for the most number of Commonwealth Games medals.
He has 13, equalling swimmer Karen Pickering's haul between 1990 to 2002, and has three more events in Melbourne.
"It's down to me to beat it now," he said.
Jung and Ronak Pandit later won the 25m standard pistol pairs.
MEDALS TABLE
| | G | | S | | B | Tot. |
| Australia | 23 | 15 | 18 | 56 |
| England | | 8 | 11 | | 6 | 25 |
| India | | 7 | | 3 | | 1 | 11 |
| Scotland | | 4 | | 4 | | 3 | 11 |
| South Africa | | 3 | | 1 | | 4 | 8 |
| Canada | | 2 | 10 | | 5 | 17 |
| New Zealand | | 2 | | 3 | | 5 | 10 |
| Malaysia | | 1 | | 1 | | 2 | 4 |
| Sri Lanka | | 1 | | 0 | | 0 | 1 |
| Bangladesh | | 0 | | 1 | | 0 | 1 |
| PNG | | 0 | | 1 | | 0 | 1 |
| Wales | | 0 | | 0 | | 3 | 3 |
| Singapore | | 0 | | 0 | | 2 | 2 |
| Fiji | | 0 | | 0 | | 1 | 1 |
| Isle of Man | | 0 | | 0 | | 1 | 1 |
(Silver, bronze medals not awarded in all sports)
