Glasgow: India’s golden boy Abhinav Bindra finished off his Commonwealth Games journey with his maiden singles gold medal while his compatriot Ravi Kumar unfortunately missed out on a bronze medal in a shoot-off in the final of the men’s 10m air rifle event at the Barry Buddon Shooting Centre here Friday.
Bindra and Ravi were engaged in an interesting duel during the final round. Ravi was in lead after 12 shots but Bindra took over him in the 13th shot and then raced away to seal the gold medal in style.
For Bindra, who won India’s only individual Olympic gold medal in Beijing, it was his first individual gold medal in his fifth and last Commonwealth Games here. On the eve of the event, Bindra, 31, had announced that this would be his last Commonwealth Games.
The gold medal was the second medal for India from the shooting ranges after 16-year-old Malaika Goel won the sliver in the women’s 10m air pistol event.
Bindra, who was the youngest participant at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, shot 205.3 in the final to clinch his fourth Commonwealth Gold medal. His previous three gold medals were in pairs. He had won singles silver medals in 2002 and 2010 and bronze in 2006.
The Olympic champion shot 205.3 in a keenly contested final round that saw three shoot-off. Bindra also had a good qualifying round where he finished third with 622.2 points.
The silver went to Bangladesh’s Abdullah Baki while England’s Daniel Rivers got the bronze. Both Baki and Rivers were tied for the second position after the eighth shot but Baki won the shoot-off.
Baki finished with a score of 202.1 and was fifth in the qualifying rounds with a score of 620. Rivers topped the qualifying rounds with a score of shot 623.6, which was a Games Record and got 182.4 in the final.
Rivers and India’s Ravi Kumar were also tied for the third place but the Englishman clinched the shoot-off. Ravi shot 162.4 in the final.