Olympic - Abhinav Bindra one in a Billion

India's 1st Gold Medal at Beijing Olympics Beijing: Abhinav Bindra won India’s first ever individual Olympic gold medal when he claimed the men’s 10m air rifle shooting title in Beijing Monday 11th August 2008.

Bindra, 25, a businessman from Chandigarh, followed his world championship title two years ago to finally win a landmark gold medal for India.

The Indian trumped his rivals with the best finish of 104.5 in the 10-shot final as he went into the last shot level with Hakkinen on 689.7 points. While Bindra secured his best score of 10.8 in the deciding shot, Hakkinen managed only 9.7 to concede the silver to Zhu, whose last shot was 10.5. Bindra finished with a combined tally of 700.5.

Bindra said, “Life cannot get better than this. I’m thrilled about winning the gold... It’s very difficult to describe how I feel because the winning moment is yet to sink in. I guess it was my day today.” Dedicating his victory to family and fellow Indians, “I know my country was yearning for this medal a very long time.

After missing a medal at Athens by a whisker, I knew I had to win here.” On his performance: “After having qualified fourth for the final, I knew I had to go all out... My start wasn’t impressive, but things started looking up soon.” In his moment of glory, Bindra added: “This is just the beginning... I want to win more Olympic medals. But I hope my victory today will make people pay more attention to Olympic sports.” In one of the most thrilling shooting finals in Olympic history, Bindra overcame a two point deficit against Hakkinen and one point against Zhu after the qualification rounds to annexe the title.