A silver lining for home shooter Drew

ON the shotgun range, Scotland’s Drew Christie won a silver medal in the skeet.

The34-year-oldfromDundee, where the shooting competition is being held, delighted the home crowd by reaching the gold-medal match.

But Christie’s technique deserted him when it mattered most as he hit a disastrous six clays out of 16 to lose out to Georgios Achilleos of Cyprus, who went one better than his silver in Delhi four years ago.

Nevertheless, Christie insisted: “It’s brilliant, I can’t believe it.”

David Luckman and Parag Patel won England’s first shooting gold of the Games in torrential rain in the Queen’s Prize Pairs.

They led from start to finish in the two-day event, in which shooters with full bore rifles fire at targets at distances of up to 1,000 yards.

They beat Canada’s Jim Paton and Des Vamplew into second place, while Scots Ian Shaw and Angus McLeod took bronze.

The duo will be back on the range on Sunday morning as the individual event begins, as will home pairMcLeod and Shaw.

Shaw said: “It’s fantastic. Silver or gold would have been better but we’ll live with bronze.

“How we will celebrate? We are competing at 9.40 in the morning, but we might sneak in a small Coca-Cola.”

“Last time in Delhi I just missed out so to make it into the top two and know you’ve got a medal was brilliant.”

Meanwhile, veteran shooterMichael Gault, in his sixth Games, toasted equalling Commonwealth Games history when he bagged his 18th podium. He could make it 19 in the 50m event tomorrow.

SCOTLAND suffered a second straight defeat in the men’s hockey tournament, going down 6-2 to India.

Having lost 2-0 to South Africa in their opener on Friday, Derek Forsyth’s team went down heavily in their second Pool A game.

World number nines India surged into a 6-0 lead inside 48 minutes.

And although Kenny Bain and Nicholas Parkes got the host nation on the board, it was too little, too late.