Vijay Kumar has been shooting for India from a long time, but not many people knew the talented army man before his heroics at the London Olympics where he won the silver medal in 25m rapid fire pistol. Vijay became the first pistol shooter to win a medal.

Vijay Kumar is the fourth Indian shooter to win a medal at Olympics before him RVS Rathore (Silver medal at Athens), Abhinav Bindra (Gold medal at Beijing) and Gagan Narang (Bronze medal at London) achieved the feat. This time the expectations were very high from the shooting contingent and though our shooters have got two medals, but overall they haven’t achieved what they were capable of. Shooters of the caliber of Abhinav Bindra and Ronjon Sodhi failed to qualify for the finals.

Amidst all this the man from Himachal Pradesh stood his ground in what is considered to be one of the toughest shooting event where in the finals a shooter has to take five shots in four seconds. Vijay Kumar shot the target 30 times out of 40 in the series comprising eight rounds of five shots each. In the process he defeated many shooters including Alexei Klimov and the Chinese duo of Ding Feng and Zhang Jian.

Vijay Kumar after his win said that it was his dream to win an Olympic medal and it feels amazing to have done that. Kumar also thanks the fact that he went under the radar as far as the media was concerned, he said that is low-profile helped him to keep his focus on the target.

But, Kumar is a bit shocked by the way people and media are shocked by him winning a silver medal. And when one has a look at his record one will understand Kumar’s confusion. Kumar a Subedar in the Indian Army won two gold medals at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, one individual gold in 25m rapid fire pistol and one alongside Pemba Tamang in the same event. The same year he won a bronze medal at Asian Games and finished second at the Asian Championship.

In 2009, he won a silver medal at the 2009 ISSF World Cup in Beijing where he won by 0.1 points. In 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games he came up with a stupendous performance by winning three gold medals and one silver medal. He won the gold in Men's 25 metre rapid fire pistol pairs, Men's 25 metre rapid fire pistol singles, Men's 25 metre centre fire pistol pairs and a silver medal in Men's 25 metre centre fire pistol singles.

So, Vijay Kumar is absolutely right, he has made India proud on so many occasion and it is a pity that the people didn’t realize how great this athlete has been for India over the years. It has all changed now as he won the silver medal at London and finally we will start appreciating this great sportsperson.

By Indian Sports News Network