New Delhi, July 24: Abhinav Bindra has this habit of coming back from the dead. The 23-year-old has had many a sortie in a career spanning more than 10 years. Every time he was written off, the Chandigarh shooter had made his critics eat their words. He did so two years ago at Athens by making it to the finals in the Olympics. And he has done it again in the ISSF World Championships at Zagreb: a gold and a coveted Olympic ‘quota’ place. Incidentally, Bindra will be participating in his third Olympics.

After Athens, Bindra had virutally given up the Air rifle event and began focusing on big bore event (300 m). At the Hyderabad nationals last year, Bindra was candid enough to admit that he may not be suited for the event (air rifle). ‘‘After so many years of hard work and training if I can’t win a Olympic medal, maybe, my choice of sport was wrong,’’ he had told this correspondent.

And all this amid speculation that Bindra, the youngest Rajiv Khel Ratna awardee, always promised a lot but rarely delivered. He has yet again proved that he is a big-stage player. He always gets pumped up when down in the dumps. The quality of a marksman is reflected when he is pitted against a top field.

And Zagreb had all top-notchers. But what clinched the issue in favour of Bindra, who scored 699.7 (597+102.7), was consistent throughout in the finals. Consider this. Bindra’s final 10 shots had just two scores of less than 10 as the series indicate: 10.3, 10.3, 10.3, 10.0, 10.6, 9.3, 10.9, 9.2, 10.5 and 10.7.

Thus he joined the Indian bandwagon as the fifth shooter after Gagan Narang (Air rifle), Anjali Bhagwat (Air rifle), Manavjit Singh Sandhu (trap) and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (double trap) to book their Beijing Olympic quota places.

When contacted, coach Sunny Thomas told The Indian Express: ‘‘He was simply superb today. He deserved to win and his scoring in the final was mindboggling.’’

Holding his nerve in finals, Bindra called the shots with an excellent performance for a score of 102.1 to clinch the gold. The Romanian (698.3) who did not have a good round in the finals managed the silver, thanks to his qualificiation score (597). Chinese Qinan Zhu also upped his concentration level in the finals to score 102.9 (697.9) to pushed out Jozef (597+100.8=697.8), according to information reaching here.

Pleased as punch over his son’s performance, Abhinav’s father Dr A.S. Bindra told The Indian Express, ‘‘it gives me immense pleasure that he is a world champion now. And clinching a spot in the Beijing Olympics is just icing on the cake.”

— With inputs from Ikhhlaq Singh Aujla

...Avneet joins elite company

NEW DELHI: On a profitable day at Zagreb, Avneet Kaur Sidhu became the sixth Indian to clinch a quota place for the Beijing Olympics.

Despite finishing eighth in the finals with a score of (397+101.2), the Punjab girl was lucky to make it to Beijing as others before her had already won their quota places.

‘‘Avneet is sure to get the quota even before her final is over as others who are ahead of her have already qualified for the Olympics,’’ coach Sunny Thomas said.