Mahindra Scorpio TOISA: Abhinav Bindra wins Shooter of the Year Award

MUMBAI: Abhinav Bindra has bagged the

TOISA

Shooter of the Year Award at the Mahindra Scorpio

Times of India Sports Awards

in Mumbai.

The second edition of TOISA, which reward the best of Indian sport in 2016 and celebrate the future and golden past of the country's athletes, were pushed back a few months on account of the Rio Olympics. In a year unfortunately headlined by the failure of India's shooting contingent at the Summer Games, where only two of the country's marksmen made to the final of their respective events, that Bindra, in his last appearance on the Olympic stage (and third final in five attempts) came within 0.1 of winning a second medal at the pinnacle of world sport was valued over all other results.

During the final of the men's 10m air rifle event, in the first series of three shots Bindra shot 29.9. In the second, he dropped down to seventh place with a score of 60.1. In the third, super shots worth 10.7 and 10.8 moved him to third and into bronze medal position. That became second as Bindra nailed another 10.7, moving to within 0.5 behind the leader. As the tension ratcheted up, Bindra began the sixth series with a 9.7 shot. His second was 10.5. It call came down to his last shot, which was a 10 - but not enough to win him bronze; he bowed out of the competition at fourth place with cumulative score of 163.8.

Bindra, who in 2008 won India's sole individual Olympic gold medal, retired from shooting following the Games and later in 2016 was named as part of an NRAI review committee to look into Indian shooting's no-medal show in Rio. He is currently part of the PM's task force on the preparations for the next three Olympic Games.

"It was a case of so close, yet so far," said chairman of the TOISA jury Zafar Iqbal, captain of the last Indian hockey team to win an Olympic gold medal. "You have to doff your hat at Abhinav, for he is unique. You felt heartbroken for him when he came so close to winning bronze in Rio. In an Olympic year, you have to keep Olympics as the benchmark for performances and that was the best that an Indian shooter did in Rio."

At his first Olympics, winner of the 2015 TOISA Sportsperson and Shooter of the Year award, Jitu Rai, finished eighth out of eighth in the men's 10m air pistol final while the rest all stumbled in their qualifications, including 2012 bronze medal winner Gagan Narang, former world No 1 Heena Sidhu and Manavjit Singh Sandhu, who has won at every major tournament except the Olympics.
Sales Special Microsites