Glasgow, July 26: India's Prakash Nanjappa won silver in the men's 10 metres Air Pistol shooting event at the Commonwealth Games 2014 here at Barry Buddon Shooting Centre Saturday. (The inspirational story of Prakash Nanjappa)

CWG Special; Medals Table; Photos

The 38-year-old shooter from Bangalore totalled 198.2 points to be second in the final behind Australian Daniel Repacholi, who set a Finals Games Record score of 199.5.

It is a great inspiring story of Nanjappa, who, last year same time (July 2013), suffered a paralytic attack during a competition in Spain. Later, he was diagnosed with Bell's palsy (a form of facial paralysis). Now, he has recovered from that and has done India proud.

A horrendous shot midway into the final round competition cost Nanjappa a gold. Nanjappa, who won a bronze in the ISSF World Cup in South Korea last year, was leading at the end of the second series of the elimination stage but he apparently lost concentration and shot a disappointing 7.7 to hand the lead to eventual winner Repacholi.

Despite the setback in the sixth shot of the elimination stage, he tried his best to catch up with the Australian but failed to do so in the end and had to settle with a silver.

Nanjappa, who topped the qualification round, was seen ruffled by that mistake and he was taking deep breaths in between the shots.

A team member later said Prakash felt time constraint and that was why the grip over his pistol was not proper when he shot 7.7. Before the last round, Repacholi had taken a lead of 1.4 points but he could only come up with a 9.3 in the penultimate shot and Prakash could have narrowed down the gap.

The Indian could not do that as he also shot a 9.3 at a crucial juncture. Prakash was the first to fire the last shot and he came up with a 10.5, putting pressure on his Australian opponent. But Repacholi fired a 10.4 to run away with the gold.

Nanjappa took up the sport inspired by his father PN Papanna, a former national-level shooter. However, in 2003, he took a break, moved to Canada and worked a software engineer for six years. But he came back to India in 2009 and was at his best again.

This was India's 11th medal at the Games and today's first.

OneIndia News

(With PTI inputs)