Finally Abhinav Bindra put an end to the 80 years wait of a nation!On August, Bindra’s bullets breeze past McMohan line breaking the Chinese heart. The moment that India waited for a long while. A moment that makes Indians to dive onto the pitch with arms and legs outstretched. A moment that an Indian making his way to another league – Olympic gold medallist.
What was the driving force behind Abhinav. When Indian team were heading for Beijing, no one has expected a miraculous performance from Abhinav, as the media was focussing on the performance of much-talked-about Sania Mirza, Lee-Hesh, Anju, Anup Sridhar and few others.
Unlike many others Abhinav, who is a CEO of Abhinav Futuristics, a PC games peripherals distributor based in Chandigarh, didn’t get any space in media. He just went with the team to Beijing and did what he could do, despite having a career-threatening back problem.
Abhinav had only two bronze medals in the World Cups in Germany that he captured in 2001 and 2003 under his belt. He looked ready to set the record straight in the Athens Olympics when he made the final with a similar 597, but failed miserably to surpass the final hurdle.
Abhinav has always been blamed for not keeping the consistency. But this time he topples the expectation of experts and went on to win the gold medal, the first one by an Indian in the history of Olympics. He shot a spectacular series of 10.3, 10.3, 10.3, 10.0, 10.6, 9.3, 10.9, 9.2, 10.5 and 10.7 to win the gold with a 0.8-point margin.
There have only been two other instances of Indian shooters winning a World championship medal. Dr. Karni Singh had won the trap silver in a World championship in 1962 in Cairo and Lt. Col. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore had bagged the bronze in the shotgun World Championship in Cyprus in 2003.
Official representation by India was made in 1928 Amsterdam, with the formation of Indian Olympic Association in 1927. In athletics, six Indians and the 4x400 women's relay team have reached the finals of their events in Olympics.
They are Norman Pritchard in 1900 (two silvers in sprint and hurdles), Henry Rebello in 1948 London (Triple Jump), Milkha Singh 1960 Rome (4th place in 400 metres), Gurbachan Singh Randhawa 1964 Tokyo (5th place in 100 m hurdles), Sriram Singh 1976 Montreal ( 7th in 800m), P.T Usha in 1984 Los Angeles ( 4th in 400m hurdles) who unfortunately lost her bronze by 1/100th of a second. Gold comes through Abhinav when only four days to go for India’s 61 birthday.
Abhinav’s achievement
At 15 he became the youngest participant at the 1998 Commonwealth Games.
Arjuna Award in 2000
Made a junior world record score of 597/600 in 2001 Munich World Cup and won bronze
Bindra won six gold medals at various international meets in the European Circuit in 2001. Lifted Nissan cup and Den Haag cup
Special cash award from NRAI for establishing new junior world record
Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna in 2001.
Declared the best shooter of RIAC 2001
Gold in 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games; first Indian shooter to win a World Championship gold
In 2006, Bindra became the first Indian shooter to win a World Championship gold in Zagreb.
Granted international Olympic solidarity scholarship by INternational Olympic Committee
Life membership for Luzembourg National Shooting Club
A special cash award from National Rifle Association
Olympic gold medallist on 2008-08-11
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