TheSportsCampus

At first glance you wouldn't think Abhinav Bindra was the CEO of a PC games distributor. But then again, you wouldn't expect that he would be the first Indian to win an individual gold at the Olympics considering that he has been battling a career-threatening back injury.

The almost 26 year old was once a child prodigy when at 15, he became the youngest participant at the 1998 Commonwealth Games. In 2000, he was the youngest at the Olympic Games and he got better as the years progressed. The next year, he won six gold medals in various competitions.

At the 2002 Commonwealth Games, he won gold in the Men's 10m Air Rifle pairs and silver in the individual event.

In t he 2004 Olympics he finished a disappointing seventh in the final but came back strong again in the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games to win gold in the Men's 10m Air Rifle pairs and silver in the individual event.

The always calm, composed and focussed Abhinav was only to get better as he would go on to capture the gold in the ISSF World Shooting Championships in 2006 which would only set the stage for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Achievements: Current World and Olympic Champion in the 10m Men`s Air Rifle, won the Arjuna award (2000) and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (2001)

Birth Date: September 28, 1982 Birth Place: Dehra Dun, India

Nicknames: Silent Killer, Gold Finger

http://www.wikipedia.org
Economic Times article

Photograph Copyright: Bollywood Sargam (Bindra)