Abhinav Bindra

Abhinav Bindra (born 28 September 1982) is an Indian former sport shooter and a businessman. He is an Olympic gold medalist as well as the first and one of only two Indians to win an individual Olympic gold medal. Bindra is also the first Indian to have held concurrently the World and Olympic titles for the men's 10-metre air rifle event, having earned those honours 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 and is one of the top influencers of sport policy in the country. At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Bindra finished fourth in the finals of the 10-metre 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. Bindra's primary outreach to Indian sports is through the Abhinav Bindra Foundation, a non-profit organisation that works to integrate sports, science, and technology into Indian sports and encourage high-performance physical training. In 2018, Abhinav was bestowed with the prestigious Blue Cross, the ISSF's highest honour. He is also currently a member of the IOC Athletes' Commission. Bindra carried the Olympic torch at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.