🇮🇳 Abhinav Bindra

He was born in Dehradun and grew up in Chandigarh, the son of Apjit Bindra, a Punjab industrialist who ran a successful agricultural-equipment business. The family wealth was the precondition for the career: Apjit built a 10m indoor shooting range on the family property when Abhinav was a teenager, importing equipment that the Sports Authority of India did not at that time provide.

He represented India at the Sydney 2000 Olympics at the age of seventeen, the youngest Indian Olympian of that Games. He finished outside the medals. He went to Athens in 2004 ranked among the world's top three and finished seventh after a misfire in qualification, a result he has called 'the worst week of my life'.

The Beijing build-up was famously obsessive. He hired the German biomechanist Gaby Buhlmann, the Finnish coach Heinz Reinkemeier and a sports psychologist out of his own pocket — at a stage when the Indian government's contribution to his preparation was less than a fifth of what he spent. He built a replica of the Beijing range in his Chandigarh facility, including the exact lighting conditions and the exact wall colour.

The Beijing final on 11 August 2008 produced a score of 700.5, the gold medal, and a long standing ovation from the Chinese gallery. The image of Bindra — the rifle held at his hip, the small nod to no one in particular — was the cover of every Indian newspaper for a week. He was 25.

London 2012 ended without a medal; Rio 2016 ended one ranking-point short, in fourth place at the age of 33. He retired from international competition after Rio with one Olympic gold, three Commonwealth Games golds, an Asian Games gold and a World Championship title from 2006 in Zagreb.

He was awarded the Khel Ratna in 2002, the Padma Bhushan in 2009, and the Olympic Order — the IOC's highest individual recognition — in 2021. He sits on the IOC's Athletes' Commission, chairs the Indian Olympic Association's Athletes' Commission, and runs Abhinav Bindra Targeting Performance, a network of high-performance training centres for Indian shooters across Chandigarh, Mohali, Trivandrum and Bhubaneswar.

He has never married, lives quietly in Mohali, and reads philosophy obsessively. His 2011 autobiography A Shot at History, written with the journalist Rohit Brijnath, is taught in two Indian business schools as a case study in deliberate practice. His most-quoted line, from the book, is: 'I am not a sportsman. I am a marksman. The difference is the difference between a runner who happens to win and a craftsman who happens to compete.'