Bangladesh shooter Abdullah Hel Baki clinched silver in the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, giving his country its first medal in the 21st edition of the Games.
This is Bangladesh's seventh medal in the history of the Commonwealth Games.
All seven have been achieved in the shooting discipline.
The right-handed Baki, who also claimed silver in the 20th edition of the Games in Glasgow four years ago, finished second in the 10m air-rifle event.
A total of eight shooters took part in the final round of the event where Baki emerged second with 244.7 points, just 0.3 point behind Australia's Dane Sampson, who claimed gold.India's Ravi Kumar won bronze with 224.1 points.
Although Baki repeated his heroics from four years ago, the Bangladesh shooter put on a much better display in Gold Coast compared to Glasgow where his final points tally read 202.1 points.
Baki scored a total of 616 points in the qualifying round to advance to the final round as the sixth best shooter.
The other Bangladesh shooter Rabbi Hasan Munna failed to make it to the top eight as he finished 14th.
In the 24-round final round, Baki rose to the very top of the chart on a few occasions.From the 16th round onwards, Sampson, placed eighth in Glasgow, Baki and Ravi were involved in an epic battle.
In the 21st round, Indian shooter Ravi was out of the running for the gold, leaving Sampson and Baki to battle it out for the top prize.
The 28-year old Baki needed 10.1 points in the 24th and final round to clinch gold but the Bangladesh shooter managed 9.7.
Baki will now take part in the men's 50m rifle prone event Tuesday before trying his luck in his last event - the men's 50m rifle 3 positions Saturday.
Meanwhile in the women's 10m air-pistol event, Bangladesh shooters Armin Asha and Ardina Ferdous were eliminated in the qualifying round.Ardina narrowly missed out on qualifying for the final round as she finished ninth out of 25 shooters while Armin was placed 17th.
The fastest man of the country, Mesbah Ahmed finished 53rd out of 67 athletes in the opening round of the men's 100m sprint.
The 23-year old clocked 10.96s to finish fifth out of seven participants in heat six.
The fastest female sprinter Shirin Akter clocked 12.72s to finish sixth out of seven participants in heat one.
Overall, Shirin was placed 38th out of 42.Bangladesh concluded its campaign in swimming discipline Sunday when Mohammad Nahid finished 21st out of 29 participants in the heat of the men's 100m butterfly event with a timing of 56.94s.
Youngster Ariful Islam finished 23rd out of 35 in the heat of the men's 50m breaststroke event.
Bangladesh with one silver are currently 13th in the Gold Coast medal standing, among a total of 71 countries.
Thursday, March 20, 2025
