India’s Gagan Narang opened the country’s account of medals at the 2012 London Olympics by grabbing the bronze medal. Narang secured the medal in the men’s 10m air rifle event in London on July 30, 2012.
Narang in a gripping ten-shot final, shot 103.1 for an aggregate of 701.1 after scoring 598 in the qualifying round in which he also stood third. Romania’s Moldoveanu Alin George secured the gold and the second place was grabbed by Italy’s Niccolo Campriani at the Royal Artillery Barracks.
Narang after a good start shot 10.7 and was off target with his second shot which fetched him 9.7. But then Gagan concentrated and steadily aimed to collect 10.6 10.7 10.4 and 10.6 in the following four shots.
Narang could even compete for the silver but slipped a bit and fought or the bronze with China’s Wang Tao who finished fourth with 700.4. The shooter had returned to the game with poor score of 9.9 and 9.5 in the seventh and eighth attempts and sealed the Bronze with impressive scores of 10.3 and 10.7. On the other hand defending champion Abhinav Bindra made a shocking exit from the game with his poor performance in the preliminaries in which he stood 16th out of 47 contestants.
