A month ago, Vijay Kumar was uncertain about his return to the sport. Having undergone a surgery to correct cervical spondylitis, the London Olympics silver medallist rested and recovered for more than a month after his herniated C5 disc had to be replaced.

Vijay, who had a mediocre 2014, had said the injury was a direct result of a burnout and the 40-day break following the surgery had given him the mental break he desperately needed. And since his return, he has looked in ominous form.

The 39-year-old followed up his national championships gold in the 25m centre fire pistol by bagging individual and team gold medals at the National Games in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday.

Vijay, who won the team silver in last year’s Asian Games, was in tremendous form, shooting a score of 583 in the individual competition. Services also finished on top in the team event with a score of 1733.

Himachal Pradesh veteran Samresh Jung (576) and Services’ Pemba Tamang, part of the silver-winning Asiad team, settled for the silver and bronze medals, respectively in the individual competition. The shooting range was witness to some rare sights with Kerala getting their first National Games gold-medallist in the sport through Elizabeth Koshy, who upstaged a field comprising, among others, former world champion Tejaswini Sawant, to come out trumps in the 50m women’s Rifle Prone event.

Koshy shot a score of 618.5 and was followed by Haryana’s Meena Kumari (617.8) and West Bengal’s Kuheli Ganguli (616.6) in the second and third position, respectively. In the men’s 50m rifle prone event, Services’ Chain Singh Manhas left the likes of Joydeep Karmakar (West Bengal) and Sanjeev Rajput (Haryana) behind to snatch the gold medal with a score of 205.8. Madhya Pradesh’s Samsher Singh Bhandari (204.6) grabbed the silver ahead of Karmakar, who shot a rather disappointing score of 183.1 to fetch a bronze.

In trap and skeet shooting events in Thrissur, World Cup gold-medallist Manavjit Sandhu, representing Punjab, was a surprise bronze-medallist with a score of 25 in men’s trap finals as Uttar Pradesh bagged both gold and silver. Anirudh Singh was the winner, totalling 26, while Anwer Sultan settled for the silver after beating Manavjit in a shoot-off.

After briefly losing the top spot to Haryana, Services Sports Control Board continued to lead the medals tally with 25 medals (16 gold, 2 silver and 7 bronze), followed by the north-Indian powerhouse which tallied 24 medals (15 gold, five silver and 4 bronze). Maharashtra were third despite a higher medal count of 30 on account of 9 gold, 15 silver and six bronze.