India sent a group of 57 athletes for 12 sports at the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Among them, 32 Indian Olympians participated in men’s events, while 25 participated in women’s events. The Indian Olympians represented the country in 48 events at the Games.
Like any other Olympics Performances, India hadn’t had much to cheer about apart from a few individual performances that stood right up there, three of these converting to medals as well. India finished at 50th rank on the medal tally. Here we look at the top 5 Indian performances at Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics:-
5. Mangal Champia
Mangal Singh Champia in an Indian professional archer and he represented India at the Beijing 2008 Olympics with the archery men’s team.
He narrowly missed out the medal with a total of 678 points and couldn’t grab any medal for the country in this competition. He faced 31st seed at the final and defeated by the Russian archer Bair Badenov at the quarter-finals.
4. Mandeep Kaur
Indian Olympian Mandeep Kaur is an Indian Track & Field Athlete who participated in women’s 400 Meters sprint at the Beijing Summer Games.
She is a middle-distance sprinter. Mandeep took 52.88 seconds to finish the race and finished at the 6th position.
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3. Sushil Kumar
Sushil Kumar Solanki is an Indian freestyle wrestler, who won a bronze medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympics and gave India a valid reason for celebrating. Sushil Kumar participated at men’s freestyle wrestling category for the 66 kg event and won within a span of 70 minutes at the quarterfinal.
He was honored with several cash prizes from the Government of India and a high-grade railway job for his contribution at the Beijing 2008 Olympics.
2. Vijender Singh
Vijender Singh is the second Indian Olympian in this list who made India proud at the Beijing 2008 Olympics with his bronze medal. He is a professional Indian boxer and participated in the men’s amateur boxing sport at that event in the middleweight category.
He won the quarter-final with a scoring rate of 9-4 by defeating Carlos Gongora and became the first Indian boxer to win a medal at the Olympics Games.
1. Abhinav Bindra
The Indian shooter Abhinav Bindra made India super proud with his gold win at this Beijing 2008 Olympics. He participated at the men’s shooting sport in 10 m air rifle shooting category and came first with a total score of 700.5 at the end.
With this win, he not only brought India its first gold medal at this event but also the first individual gold in the history of Olympics.