Abhinav Bindra (born 28 September 1982) is an Indian former sport shooter and a businessman.[1] He is an Olympic gold medalist as well as the first and one of only two Indians to win an individual Olympic gold medal.[2][3] Bindra is also the first Indian to have held concurrently the World and Olympic titles for the men's 10-meter air rifle event, having earned those honors at the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2006 World Championships. Bindra has won seven medals at the Commonwealth Games and three medals at the Asian Games.
With more than 150 medals in his 22-year career, he is the recipient of the Padma Bhushan from the Government of India[4] and is one of the top influencers of sport policy in the country.[5]
At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Bindra finished fourth in the finals of the 10-meter air rifle event. He also served as a goodwill ambassador for the Rio 2016 Olympics Indian contingent, having been appointed to that post by the Indian Olympics Association (IOA). On 5 September 2016, he announced his retirement.[6] Bindra's primary outreach to Indian sports is through the Abhinav Bindra Foundation, a non-profit organization that works to integrate sports, science, and technology into Indian sports and encourage high-performance physical training.[7]
At the age of 15, Bindra was the youngest participant in the 1998 Commonwealth Games. He was also the youngest Indian participant at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. At the 2000 Olympics, he 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.[18]
In international competitions, he won his first medal, a bronze, at the 2001 Munich World Cup with a new junior world record score of 597/600. He won six gold medals at various international meets that year and received the prestigious Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award, India's highest sports award. In the air rifle event at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, he finished with gold in the pairs event and silver in the individual event.[19]
In the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, he established a new Olympic record but did not win a medal. He scored 597 in the qualification round and placed third, preceded by Qinan Zhu (599, a new Olympic record) and Li Jie (598). In the finals, Abhinav finished with 97.6 points, last in the field of eight; he was the only player with less than 100 points and dropped to the seventh position.[20]
After these successes, a severe back injury incapacitated him and he was unable to lift a rifle for a year, interrupting his preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Bindra returned to compete and won the title at the 2006 ISSF World Shooting Championships with a score of 699.1, qualifying him for the 2008 Summer Olympics.[21]
At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Bindra won the men's 10-meter air rifle event, shooting a total of 700.5.[17] He scored 596 in the qualifying round, finishing fourth, and outscored all other shooters in the finals with a round of 104.5. In the finals, he started with a shot of 10.7, and all others never dipped below 10.0.[22] Bindra was tied with Henri Häkkinen heading into his final shot. Bindra scored his highest of the finals – 10.8 – while Hakkinen shot 9.7 to settle for the bronze medal.[23][2]
At the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, Bindra was honored as the national flag-bearer at the opening ceremony. He also was given the honor of taking the athletes' oath on behalf of the 6,700 participants from 71 countries and territories. Bindra, along with Gagan Narang, shot in unison to set a games record of 1,193 points in the 10-meter air rifle pairs event for men to win India's inaugural gold medal at the 19th Commonwealth Games. He brought home a silver medal in the individual event.[24]
Bindra has a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Colorado.[15] Bindra is the CEO of Abhinav Futuristics Private Limited, an organization that works to bring science and technology into the sport and healthcare sectors. With ABTP, a group of sports science and advanced physical medicine and rehabilitation (PMR) centers, the organization has served more than 5,000 athletes and medical patients. Under the Abhinav Bindra Foundation, a non-profit initiative, athletes are provided access to the latest sports technology and high-performance physical training for free.[16] Many athletes from sports such as swimming, badminton, boxing, and para-athletics have benefited from the foundation's various programs. In 2020, he launched the Abhinav Bindra Sports Medicine and Research Institute at Bhubaneswar with the mission of bringing Global Best Practice to the Indian Healthcare and Sports Medicine Sector.[28]
Since his retirement, Bindra has been involved with the TOP Scheme, one of India's most significant policies for athlete development. He was a member of the ISSF Athlete Committee from 2010 to 2020, serving as Chair from 2014, and was appointed to the IOC Athlete Commission in 2018.[29][30] In these roles he has worked for the development of athletes through mental health, financial stability, and entrepreneurship initiatives. In 2017 whilst Chair of the ISSF Athletes Committee, Bindra was criticised for approving the removal of three events from the Olympic programme in what was described as an undemocratic and un-transparent manner.[31] Bindra's net worth is estimated to be around $10 million.[32]
Bindra belongs to a sikh family and a descendant of legendary warrior Hari Singh Nalwa, who was commander-in-chief of the Sikh army during Maharaja Ranjit Singh's reign.[37]
^"Medalists – India". Beijing2008.cn. The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. Archived from the original on 14 August 2008.
^"Bindra panel recommendations undemocratic and non-transparent, says Rajmond Debevec". ESPN.in. 1 March 2017. Archived from the original on 1 March 2017. Retrieved 7 June 2023. Three-time Olympic medallist Rajmond Debevec has criticized the ISSF and its athletes committee headed by Abhinav Bindra, for scrapping three existing events from the 2020 Olympics, arguing that the process was non-transparent, and that gender equality could have been achieved using a more democratic decision-making process.
^"Hitting bull's eye". Daily Pioneer. 19 November 2011. Archived from the original on 8 February 2012. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
^Datta, Sravasti (6 November 2011). "A shot at greatness". The Hindu. Chennai, India. Archived from the original on 2 May 2014. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
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