India opened its Olympic medal tally on the third day of the London Games when Gagan Narang won the bronze in the men’s 10m air rifle competition at Royal Artillery Barrack Monday afternoon. However, in a big disappointment, Beijing gold medallist Abhinav Bindra failed to qualify in the same event.
Narang, 29, making 103.1 points in the final and 701.1 points overall, called his bronze medal win a “great stone off my chest,” and added: “This is the only medal I didn’t have in my cabinet, so now I can pin it on there.”
Bindra, who won India’s first individual gold in Beijing 2008, only managed to reach 16th spot in the qualifying round on Monday morning, to the disappointment of the large crowd of Indian supporters.