England's women archers strike gold

England won the men's and women's team compound archery gold medals at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

The women's trio of Danielle Brown, Nicky Hunt and Nichola Simpson beat Canada 232-229 to win their title.

Liam Grimwood, Chris White and Duncan Busby then held off a fightback from India to win the men's gold 231-229.

England's Stevan Walton won a shooting gold in the double trap individual and Nick Baxter and Michael Gault silver in the men's 10m air pistol pairs.

The 56-year-old Gault, England's most successful Commonwealth athlete with 15 medals over four Games, collected his first medal in Delhi as he attempts to pass the all-time record of Australian pistol shooter Phillip Adams, who won 18 medals in six Games.

India's Gurpreet Sing and Okmar Singh took gold, prompting Gault to say of his rival Singh: "He is making my life miserable, but he is a wonderful chap. He could be arrogant but he is not."

The Isle of Man's Timothy Kneale took bronze in the double trap individual behind Walton and India's Ronja Sodhi.

In the men's team compound archery, White and Busby hit the centre of the target to score a maximum 10 points with each of their first four arrows as England opened up a 119-114 lead at the halfway stage.

England shoot to Archery team gold

They maintained the five-point advantage until the final end when India hit three 10s to close the gap to three points, but Busby kept his nerve to hit a nine with his final arrow to clinch the win.

The women were the first English archers to win gold medals at a Commonwealth Games for 28 years.

They were one point behind after two of the four ends but world number one Hunt's final eight-point arrow clinched victory at the Yamuna Sports Complex.

Brown also took home a Paralympics gold from Beijing two years ago.

"I don't rank one achievement higher than the other. The Paralympics was amazing and it was my first big competition," said the 22-year-old from Yorkshire.

"But winning here against able-bodied competitors is equally awesome."

Looking to the future, she told BBC Leeds: "I can't compete at the Olympics because I shoot a compound bow and only the recurve bow is included in the Olympics, but I'm definitely wanting to go to 2012 for the Paralympics."

Team-mate Hunt paid tribute to Brown, saying: "Danielle earned her place on our team by a mile and she shot really well. We are very proud of what she has achieved."

Hunt, from Ipswich, added: "It was a really tough match and Canada were fantastic. But I think we shot to our potential and it was a good performance in the end."

She told the BBC: "Archery hasn't actually been in the Commonwealth games since 1982 and this year India, the host nation, included it as a guest sport because they're very good at archery - and it's been fantastic to show off our sport to the world."

England also had to come from behind in their semi-final against Malaysia, having trailed 58-56 after the first end.

But scoring 58 from a possible 60 with their next six arrows put them in control and Hunt completed a 226-221 win with a 10-point maximum.

In the fencing competition, held in Australia, Mhairi Spence and Louise Helyer helped Scotland to a silver medal in the women's team epee.

The pair were beaten 45/28 by Australia in the final.

Meanwhile, Spence missed out on the medals in the individual women's epee, finishing fifth in a field of 36 fencers.

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