2008 Olympics: 1st time for India – Hockey Team Fails to Qualify, Bindra Wins Olympic Individual Gold

After 28 years, India won an Olympic Gold as Abhinav Bindra became the first individual Gold medal winner for India. Vijender Singh also became the first Indian pugilist to win an Olympic medal. Sushil Kumar made it the best Olympics for India winning another Bronze. Before 2008, India’s highest number of medals had come in 1900 and 1952 Olympics when they won two medals each.

Indian Performance in Every Olympics
History of All Sports Played at Olympics by India
Olympic History

48 Events in 12 Sports, 1 Gold 2 Bronze

1. Gold: Abhinav Bindra: Men’s 10 m air rifle (Shooting)

1. Bronze: Vijender Singh Middleweight 75 kg (Boxing)

Bronze: Sushil Kumar Men’s freestyle 66 kg (Wrestling)

Olympics Statistics

1. Venue: Beijing, China

1. Sports: 302 events in 28 sports

1. Participating Nations: 204 NOCs

Athletes Participating: 10,942 (4,637 women, 6,305 men)

Indian Statistics

1. India Ranking: 50 (1 Gold, 2 Bronze

1. Flag Bearer: Rajyavardhan Rathore

1. Indian Team: 53 (31 men and 22 women)

1. Sports-India: Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Boxing, Judo, Rowing, Shooting, Swimming, Table Tennis, Tennis, Wrestling

1. 1st time since 1928 Gold medal effort, Indian Men’s Hockey failed to Qualify

1. 5th: Leander Paes (Tennis)

1. 4th: Mansher Singh (Shooter), Mahesh Bhupathi (Tennis)

1. 3rd: Anjali Ramakanta Vedpathak-Bhagwat, Abhinav Bindra (Shooting)

2nd: Dola Banerjee (Archery), Prameela Ganapathy, Vikas Gowda, Sathi Geetha, Chitra Soman, Manjit Kaur, Anju Bobby George, Harwant Kaur, J. J. Shobha (Athletics), Akhil Kumar, Vijender Singh (Boxing), Gagan Narang, Manavjit Singh Sandhu, Rajyavardhan Rathore (Shooting), Sharath Kamal Achanta (Table Tennis), Yogeshwar Dutt, Sushil Kumar (Wrestling)

Archery: 4 (1 man and 3 women) for 3 events

1. Mangal Singh: 25th Men’s Individual

1. Pranitha Vardhineni: 30th Women’s Individual

1. Bombayla Devi: 48th Women’s Individual

1. Dola Banerjee: 33rd Women’s Individual

Dola Banerjee, Pranitha Vardhineni, Bombayla Devi:: 7th in Women’s Team

Athletics: 14 (3 men and 11 women)

1. Surendra Singh: 26th Men’s 10,000 metres

1. Renjith Maheshwary: Men’s Triple Jump

1. Vikas Gowda: 22nd Men’s Discus Throw

1. Preeja Sreedharan: 25th Women’s 10,000 metres

1. Mandeep Kaur: Round 1 Women’s 400 metres

1. Sathi Geetha, Chitra Soman, Manjit Kaur, Mandeep Kaur: Round 1 Women’s 4 × 400 metres

1. Relay

1. Anju Bobby George: Women’s Long Jump

1. Harwant Kaur: Women’s Discus Throw

1. Krishna Poonia: Women’s Discus Throw

1. J. J. Shobha: 29th Women’s Heptathlon

1. Sushmitha Singha Roy: 32nd Women’s Heptathlon

Prameela Ganapathy: 27nd Women’s Heptathlon

Badminton: 2 Shuttlers (1 woman)

1. Anup Sridhar: 17th Men’s Singles

Saina Nehwal: 5th Women’s Singles

Boxing:

1. Akhil Kumar: 5th Men’s Bantamweight

1. Jitender Kumar: Quarterfinals Men’s Flyweight

1. Anthresh Lakra: Men’s Featherweight

Dinesh Kumar: Men’s Light-Heavyweight

Vijender Singh: Bronze Men’s Middleweight

1. Round of 32: def Jack (The Gambia) 13-2

1. Round of 16: def Chomphuphuang (Thailand) 13-3

1. Quarterfinals: def Góngora (Ecuador) 9-4

Semifinals: Lost to Correa (Cuba) 5-8

Judo: 2 women for 2 events

1. Khumujam Devi: 19th Women’s Extra-Lightweight

Divya Tewar: 13th Women’s Half-Heavyweight

Rowing: 3 Men in 2 events:

1. Bajrang Takhar: 21st Men’s Single Sculls

Devender Khandwal and Manjit Singh: 18th Men’s Lightweight Double Sculls

Sailing
Nachhatar Johal: 23rd Mixed One Person Dinghy

Shooting: 9 (7 men and 2 women) for 9 events: 1 Gold

1. Abhinav Bindra: GOLD Men’s Air Rifle, 10 metres (700.5 points)

1. Gagan Narang: 9th Men’s Air Rifle, 10 metres, 13th Men’s Small-Bore Rifle, Three Positions, 50 metres, 35th Men’s Small-Bore Rifle, Prone, 50 metres

1. Sanjeev Rajput: Men’s Small-Bore Rifle, Three Positions, 50 metres

1. Sanjeev Rajput: Men’s Small-Bore Rifle, 50 metres

1. Mansher Singh: 8th Men’s Trap

1. Manavjit Singh Sandhu: 12th Men’s Trap

1. Rajyavardhan Rathore: 15th Men’s Double Trap

1. Samresh Jung: 41st Men’s Air Pistol, 10 metres and Men’s Free Pistol, 50 metres

1. Anjali Ramakanta Vedpathak-Bhagwat: 28th Women’s Air Rifle, 10 metres and 32nd Women’s Small-Bore Rifle, Three Positions, 50 metres

Avneet Sidhu: 39th Women’s Air Rifle, 10 metres and Women’s Small-Bore Rifle, Three Positions, 50 metres

Swimming:

1. Virdhawal Khade: Men’s 50 metres Freestyle, Men’s 100 metres Freestyle, Men’s 200 metres Freestyle

1. Sandeep Sejwal: Men’s 100 metres Breaststroke and Men’s 200 metres Breaststroke

1. Ankur Poseria: 57th Men’s 100 metres Butterfly

Rehan Poncha: Men’s 200 metres Butterfly

Table Tennis:

1. Sharath Kamal Achanta: 33rd Men’s Singles

Neha Aggarwal: Women’s Singles

Tennis:

1. Mahesh Bhupathi / Paes: 5th Men’s Doubles

1. Sania Mirza: 33rd Women’s Singles

Sania Mirza / Sunitha Rao: 9th Women’s Doubles

Wrestling:

1. Yogeshwar Dutt: 9th Men’s Lightweight, Freestyle

1. Rajiv Tomer: 17th Men’s Super-Heavyweight, Freestyle

1. Sushil Kumar: Bronze Men’s Welterweight, Freestyle

1. 1. Qualification: Bye

1. 1. Round of 16: Lost to Stadnik (Ukraine) 1-3

1. 1. Repechage 1: Def Schwab (USA) 3-1

1. 1. Repechage 2: Def Batyrov (Belarus) 3-1

1. Bronze: Def Spiridonov (Kazakhastan)