Gagan Narang wins India's first medal at London Olympics

Gagan Narang becomes India’s first medallist at the London Olympics after winning the bronze medal in the Men’s 10m Air Rifle event today. The shooter, who carried forward a score of 598 from the qualifying event, scored 103.1 points in 10 shots in the finals for an aggregate score of 701.1 points. Romania’s Alin George took the Gold medal and Niccolo Campriani won the silver. [caption id=“attachment_397067” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Narang celebrates his medal on the podium.[/caption] The shooting medals are awarded after clubbing the scores from qualifying and the finals, and Narang took third place by 0.7 points from China’s Tao Wang. It was a very closely-fought event, with Narang dropping down to fourth place after shooting a 9.9 in his seventh shot. But the overall points of the other shooters also fell at the same time and Gagan managed to stay in third place. He was given a tough fight by Tao, whose worst shot of 9.2 gave the Indian the vital chance to pull away. He did exactly that. Gagan’s 10 shots were as follows: 10.7, 9.7, 10.6, 10.7, 10.4, 10.6, 9.9, 9.5, 10.3 and 10.7 Earlier in the qualifying event, India’s other 10m Air Rifle competitor and Gold medallist at Beijing Abhinav Bindra couldn’t make the cut — finishing 16th. India will hope Narang’s medal will act as a catalyst for other big names like Deepika Kumari, Mary Kom and Saina Nehwal to end up on the podium as well.