Nanjappa completes comeback story from Bell's palsy with Commonwealth silver

Just over a year back, Prakash Nanjappa had suffered from facial paralysis while competing in Granada. Today, the shooter completed his comeback story by winning the men’s 10m air pistol silver at the Commonwealth Games. Australia’s Daniel Repacholi took gold and England’s Michael Gault took bronze. Compatriot Om Prakash narrowly missed out on qualifying for the finals. With 580 points, Nanjappa was placed first in the qualification round, two points ahead of Englishman Stewart Nangle — and finished with a total shot of 198.2 to Rapacholi’s 199.5. England’s Michael Gault took the bronze with 176.5. [caption id=“attachment_1636027” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File picture of Prakash Nanjappa. (Photo credit: Olympic Gold Quest)[/caption] This is India’s 11th medal at the Games and third from shooting after Abhinav Bindra (men’s 10-metre air rifle gold) and Malaika Goel (women’s 10-metre air pistol silver) brought in two Friday. The 38-year-old was leading till the fourth round with a combined score of 100.9 but a poor fifth round - 17.7 - saw Repacholi go ahead of the Banglorean. Though he had a better sixth round than Repacholi, the Melbourne-born maintained his lead to clinch the gold. This is not the first time Nanjappa has won after suffering from Bell’s palsy — he also won the silver in the men’s 50-metre free pistol in the sixth Asian air gun championship in Tehran in October 2013. “Nanjappa was unable to close his right eye and his facial muscles also began to sag — this was first noticed by fellow shooters during breakfast and he was immediately taken to hospital,” Nanjappa’s father told The Times of India immediately after his son suffered a paralytic attack. Nanjappa himself spoke about his ailment and was quoted in The Hindu as saying: “I was initially worried as the eye is the most crucial organ for a shooter. But then, I read up about it and realised that it was a condition that would last a maximum of six months,”. Nanjappa recovered in a month-and-a-half. Though the partial paralysis doesn’t bother him, he still suffers from dry eye syndrome and needs to regularly use eye drops. If there were any doubts about his comeback though, then the Commonwealth medal should bury them.