India's first London 2012 Olympics medal: Gagan Narang wins bronze
Narang aggregated a score of 701.1 points to take home the bronze medal. The competition was very close with Romania’s Moldoveanu Alin George scoring 702.1 to win the gold and Italy’s Niccolo Campriani - world number 1 – scoring 701.5 to bag the silver. The competition was held at Royal Artillery Barracks.
In the qualifying round too, Narang was in the third position with his score of 598 points.
However, India’s medal hopeful and Beijing Olympics gold winner Abhinav Bindra suffered a shocking exit in the preliminary round after scoring a rank of 16th out of 47 contestants.
Narang's bronze medal is India’s third win in the shooting competition so far in the Olympic Games. Bindra won the gold in 2008 Beijing Olympics while Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore won silver medal in 2004’s Athens Olympics.
Soon after Narang’s win, sports-stars, ministers and celebrities congratulated Narang on Twitter. “Gagan Narang, you make us proud by winning the first medal in Olympics 2012,” said Sachin Tendulkar on Twitter. “Let's hope & pray that we follow it up by achieving many more,” he added.
“Great news from London! Congratulations to Gagan Narang for bringing home an Olympic medal!” said Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi also on Twitter honouring Narang's performance at London 2012 Olympics. COngress's Rahul Gandhi also congratulated Narang.
