Asian Games: Shooter Abhinav Bindra wins individual bronze

Star Indian shooter Abhinav Bindra today broke his Asian Games jinx by clinching his first individual medal — a bronze — in the men’s 10m air rifle and then said it could be his last major international competition as he has decided to become a hobby shooter from now on.

The 2008 Olympic gold medal winner, who powered the country to the team bronze in the company of teammates Sanjeev Rajput and Ravi Kumar earlier while qualifying for the finals with the fifth-best score, kept his cool in the face of stiff challenge in the eight-man finals before being eliminated after the 18th shot when his total score read 187.1 to take the bronze.

The Glasgow Commonwealth Games gold medallist had a fine sequence of scores barring 9.9 and 9.6 on his 6th and 12th shots, and had to be content with the bronze medal after shooting 10.6 and 10.7 in his last two shots.

The gold medal was won by 18-year-old Chinese sensation Yang Haoran who came into the tournament as the clear favourite after winning the world title at Granada, Spain just prior to the Games.

The reigning Asian champion and World Cup final winner of 2013 tallied 209.6 to push teammate and defending champion Cao Yifei, who aggregated 208.9, to the silver.

Bindra later told waiting reporters that he will only be a hobby shooter after today but will still strive to qualify for the Rio Olympic Games in that capacity.

“I am very happy with the medal. I shot very well. From now onwards I am going to be a hobby shooter, training twice a week only. I will still take part in the qualification trials,” he said.

In trap women’s team finals, India’s Shreyasi Singh (66 pts), Seema Tomar (63) and Shagun Chowdhary (59) finished at eighth place after scoring a total of 188.

In the men’s 25-m rapidfire pistol event, Harpreet Singh was lying in seventh with a score of 290 after qualification stage 1, while the other two shooters, Gurpreet Singh and Pemba Tamang, finished way behind. As a team also, they could not do much at the Gyeonggido Shooting Range.

In the 10-metre range, Chandigarh sharp shooter Bindra’s sequence of scores in the finals read 10.4, 10.5, 10.2, 10.5, 10.4, 9.9, 10.3, 10.9, 10.4, 10.7, 10.3, 9.6, 10.4, 10.5, 10.3, 10.5, 10.6, 10.7.

This is the first individual medal in the Asian Games for the master rifle shooter. He had won a team bronze four years ago and added one to that this morning with another team bronze.

Bindra led the field till the first twelve shots before slipping to the fifth place and was saved from being ousted after a poor performance by Pourya Norouziyan of Iran and his scores of 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7.

Earlier, the Beijing Olympic gold medallist fired India to the men’s team bronze in the 10m air rifle event while booking his berth in the eight-man finals with the fifth-best score in the qualifications.

The Indian team that comprised of Bindra, Kumar and Rajput tallied 1863 to finish third behind gold medal winners – China 1886.4 and South Korea (silver) at 1867.6.

Bindra tallied 625.4 points while Ravi Kumar contributed 618.9. Another veteran Rajput scored 618.7.

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