JOIN USApart from their impressive gold haul, India has also grabbed 11 silver and five bronze medals, and Narang seemed more than satisfied with the show, including his own. The number of yellow metals, though, is less than what it was four years ago in Melbourne.
"I am very happy with my performance, four gold medals with four new Games record is good. I did struggle a bit with prone position but I think we should look at the positives," said the rifle ace, who had clinched the yellow metal in 10-metre air rifle (both singles and pairs) and 50-metre 3 positions rifle (singles and pairs).
After a bright start to his campaign, Narang somewhat lost the momentum and failed to a win a medal in his last two events -– singles and pairs 50-metre rifle prone event -- though he cannot be blamed for missing out on a medal in the pairs event.
Narang scored an imressive 593 in the final of the pairs event yesterday but his partner Hariom Singh, down with flu, shot badly at crucial junctures.
The unassuming Hyderabadi, however, refused to blame his partner for blunders that probably cost him his fifth medal.
"The person is doing his best. It's a team effort and you can't blame just one person for not doing well. We can take a lot of lessons from the losses," Narang said.
Narang's failure to qualify for the final came as a shock to many but rifle coach Stanislav Lapidus defended the Hyderabadi saying that he was shooting with a gun which did not have good barrel and that others were using much better weapon.
"I am happy with the overall performance but I was expecting more from Gagan. But don't blame him, you can blame his gun," Lapidus said.
The good news, though, was that Narang is getting a new rifle before the World Cup finals scheduled to be held later this month.
Asked whether Narang would use the new gun in the World Cup and the upcoming Guangzhou Asian Games in November, national coach Sunny Thomas said, "The World Cup is too close but he can use it provided he gets the ammunition."
Asked if he was satisfied with the performance of shotgun shooters, who have failed to win a single gold in the competition despite having world number 2, Ronjan Sodhi, in the team, Thomas said, "Shotgun is a very strong field with team like Australia in fray.
"In CWG especially, it's tough in shotgun, but Asian Games will be much easier for them compared to rifle shooters."