Abhinav Bindra clinched the World Champioship gold, the first ever for the country in shooting, with a spectacular performance in the air rifle final on Monday.

The 23-year-old Delhi lad, a two-time Olympian, went into the final a joint leader with two others at 597, and shot a 102.1 in a nerve-wracking climax to emerge top from a strong field of 122 shooters from nearly 100 countries.

"He needed a 10.4 with his last shot to ensure the gold and he shot a 10.7. It was simply wonderful. To win the Olympic quota place with a World championship gold is fantastic. He has worked hard for it, and fought brilliantly today,'' said National coach Prof. Sunny Thomas.

"I have worked hard for this. It was my day. I have always believed that I could do this and am happy to have done it. I have been in the sport for ten years, and I know that the difference between winning and losing is not much. I didn't do anything very different today,'' said Abhinav, who has been battling with a career-threatening back problem in recent months.

"He was the World junior record holder and now he is the World champion. He is not competing in prone or the 3-position events. He will be consulting doctors in Germany on 27th to decide whether he would need a surgery to solve the back problem. It has been a courageous performance from him considering his physical condition,'' said Prof. Thomas.

Precious talent
For all his precious talent and phenomenal focus on the sport, Abhinav had nothing much to show except for two bronze medals in the World Cups in Germany that he captured in 2001 and 2003. He looked ready to set the record straight in the Athens Olympics when he made the final with a similar 597, but was unlucky not to finish among the medals then, despite shooting close to his best.

Abhinav had shot a miserably 97.6 in the final then. If anything, the bad memories did not dare plague him this time as 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.

The results:
Men: 10m air rifle: 1. Abhinav Bindra 699.1 (597); 2. Alin George Moldoveanu (Rom) 698.3 (597); 3. Zhu Qinan (Chn) 697.9 (595); 31. Gagan Narang 592; 37. Sanjeev Rajput 591

After winning gold medal he said

“I have worked hard for this. It was my day. I have always believed that I could do this and am happy to have done it. I have been in the sport for ten years, and I know that the difference between winning and losing is not much. I didn’t do anything very different today”

Once again congratulation to Abhinav for his grand success.

8:42 PM
Categories: India, Olympics. Author: SacHu