Agencies 
 
Hannover, Jul 6: Ace Indian shooter Gagan Narang won the gold and set a new world record in the men's air rifle category at the Olympic test event in Hannover, Germany.

Gagan, who shot a score of 704.3 on Thursday, toppled Austrian shooter Thomas Farnik record score 703.1 set in the 2006 World Cup finals at Garnada.

Gagan shot 599 in the qualifications and then followed it up with an excellent score of 105.3 in the final round. In the sixth qualification series, Gagan shot a 9.9 which prevented him from a perfect score of 600/600.

An elated national coach Sunny Thomas said that Gagan's recent achievement will inspire him to produce better result in the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

"By any standard this is a wonderful performance and it is above the world record score. I feel it might take a lot of time before anyone can break this record. I am extremely happy he is training and shaping very well for the Olympics.

"However, there is a lot of difference between shooting a high score in a training session than that from shooting it in a competition, that too along with some of the best shooters from around the world. But I am very sure this will boost his confidence," he added.