It was Bindra's greatest sporting achievement till date. Bindra won the 10m air rifle gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He not only became the first Indian athlete to win an individual event at the Olympics, he also became the first individual to hold Olympic and world title simultaneously. His achievement was all the more special considering India last won an Olympic gold way back at Moscow in 1980 and that too in a team event (hockey). He was deservingly awarded Padma Bhushan.
World Championshipl Zagreb: Bindra went to Athens Olympics with much high expectations but had a poor show in the event .His critics started to write him off and also predicted that the goods days of Bindra may be overbut Abhinav Bindra not only overcome the burden of expectations,and prove his detractors wrong to win the 10m air rifle gold at Zagreb, Croatia as a 24-year-old to become India's first world champion in shooting in the senior category.
Abhinav Bindra showed the glimpse of his skills in shooting when he became the the youngest Commonwealth Games participant at the age of 15 in 1998. But it was in the dawn of new century that is in 2001 that Abhinav Bindra captured the bronze in the 2001 Munich World Cup shooting championship while also setting a junior world record score of 597 out of 600 in the qualification round. It was his first major international medal. It also announced the arrival of perhaps the greatest sportsperson in the field of competitive shooting sport.
