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Gold Medal Abhinav Bindra shot into fame when he won the gold medal in men’s 10m Air Rifle event in Beijing Olympic games. With it he became the first Indian to won an individual Olympic Gold medal and thus ended India’s 28 years old gold medal drought. Though he has won many international shooting events but his Olympic Gold medal has made the country proud.

Early Life Born on September 28, 1982 to an affluent Sikh Khatri family of Dr. Apjit and Babli Bindra, Abhinav has many other achievements that can not be ignored. He used to practice 12-14 hours daily at his family owned shooting range near Chandigarh. With his participation in 2000’s Olympic games he became the youngest Indian to participate in Olympics. He could not qualify for the final as his position was 11^th and only the top 8 compete in the final. He succeeded in qualifying to the final of 2004’s Olympic games as he had earned the third place with the score of 597 in the quarterfinal round. But he could not won any medal in the final because of his poor performance. He had scored only 97.s points which was much below the other competitors.

Commonwealth Games He was the Gold medalist in Pairs event and Silver medalist in the individual event in 10m air rifle event in the 2002 Commonwealth Games played in Manchester. He had won gold medal in Pairs event and bronze in individual event in 2006’s Commonwealth Games played in Melbourne. But he could not participate in the 2006 Asian Games held in Doha because of back injury and was under going treatment in Germany. In the final of the 10m air rifle event almost all his shots were perfect as he never scored below the 10.0. His last shot of 10.8 in the final earned him the gold as he was tied with Finland’s Hakkinen.

Awards He has studied at Doon School, Dehradoon and St. Stephen School,Chandigarh. He has done his BBA degree form the University of Colorado,US. He earned his MBA(Masters in Business Administration) from the same university. Presently he holds the post of CEO of Abhinav Futuristics. Government of India had awarded him with the 2000’s Arjuna award. He was conferred with India’s highest sport award-Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna in 2001.