Abhinav Bindra is an Indian businessman and retired professional shooter who is a World and Olympic champion in the 10 m Air Rifle event. By winning the gold in the 10 m Air Rifle event at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, he became the first Indian to win an individual gold medal at the Olympic Games. He is the first and only Indian to have held both the World and Olympic titles at the same time, a feat he accomplished by capturing the Gold Medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, after having won the gold at the 2006 ISSF World Shooting Championships.
Abhinav Bindra won Gold Medal in 2014 Commonwealth Games at Glasgow. He feels that he has no talent and his only talent is that he can practise regularly, diligently and honestly. He said that he had a dream of winning gold medals in Olympics from the very first day he started shooting practice. According to him, most Indian parents do not consider sports as a profession. Bindra wants people to look up sports as a serious profession in India
Abhinav Bindra is an Indian Olympic gold medalist, retired sport shooter, and businessman. He is the first and one of only two Indians to win an Individual Olympic Gold Medal. Bindra was born in Dehradun in Uttarakhand, to a Sikh Khatri Punjabi family. He Completed his education at the Doon School in Dehradun and at St. Stephen’s School in Chandigarh. He studied business administration at the University of Colorado Boulder. Determined to train with the best possible facilities, which were then not available in India, he would train for prolonged periods in Germany.
Right from an early age, Abhinav Bindra showed an interest in shooting, and had an indoor shooting range installed at his home in Patiala. At the young age of 15, he represented India in the 1998 Commonwealth Games as the youngest participant in the tournament. He was also the youngest Indian participant at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.
At the 2000 Olympics, Abhinav Bindra achieved a score of 590, placing him 11th in the qualification round. With that score, he was not able to qualify for the finals. He was also honored with the Arjuna Award that year. Abhinav created a new junior world record score of 597/600 in the 2001 Munich World Cup and won the bronze medal. He went on to win 6 Golds in various international sporting events, including being the first Indian to win the gold at the 2006 ISSF World Shooting Championships. And then rewrote history at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, where he secured India’s first individual gold medal in the 10m Air Rifle event.
Abhinav Bindra has held influential positions on the Board of Advisors at GoSports Foundation, and the Indian Olympics Association (IOA), where he was Goodwill Ambassador for Rio 2016. He has also been a part of the ISSF and IOC Athlete Commissions, where he has worked for the development of athletes through mental health, financial stability, and entrepreneurship initiatives.
