Gold medalist Abhinav Bindra, center, of India, silver medalist Zhu Qinan, left, of China, and bronze medalist Henri Hakkinen, of Finland, stand on the podium during the medal ceremony after the men's 10m Air Rifle final at Shooting Range Hall at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Monday, Aug. 11, 2008. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

Beijing, Aug 11: India's 23-year-old Abhinav Bindra created history today in Beijing, by wining the first gold medal in any individual category for India in the 108-year Olympics history.

He won the gold medal in men's 10-meter air rifle event after earning a total of 700.5 points.

Earlier, Abhinav, who became the first Indian individual gold medallist at the Olympics, had qualified for the men's 10m air rifle event finals. He finished the qualifying event joint fourth with Romania's George Alin Moldoveanu after the duo shot a score of 596/600.
He scored a series of 100,99,100,98,100 and 99 in the qualifiers.

However, India's other medal hope Gagan Narang failed to make the final cut in the same event finishing ninth with a score of 595/600. He shot a series of 97, 100, 100, 100, 98 and 100.

Abhinav, who was the youngest Indian participant at the 2000 Olympic Games, won six gold medals at various international meets in 2001. In the Air rifle event at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, Manchester, he won gold in the Pairs event and silver in the individual event. At the 2004 Olympic Games, he broke the Olympic record but failed to win a medal.

He is a recipient of the Arjuna award in 2001 and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award for the year 2001-2002.

(ANI)