New Delhi, Aug 11 : President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday congratulated Abhinav Bindra for creating history in Beijing, by winning the first gold medal in any individual category for India in the 108-years of Olympics history.

In separate messages, Patil and Dr. Singh lauded the achievement of 23-year-old Bindra with the Prime Minister describing the feat as a "golden performance".

Congress president and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Leader of Opposition L. K. Advani, the Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and others joined the billions of countrymen in congratulating Bindra as messages came in from all walks of life across the nation.

Bindra won the gold medal in men''''s 10-meter air rifle event after earning a total of 700.5 points.

Earlier, Abhinav, who became the first Indian individual gold medallist at the Olympics, had qualified for the men''''s 10m air rifle event finals. He finished the qualifying event joint fourth with Romania''''s George Alin Moldoveanu after the duo shot a score of 596/600.

He scored a series of 100,99,100,98,100 and 99 in the qualifiers.

However, India''''s other medal hope Gagan Narang failed to make the final cut in the same event finishing ninth with a score of 595/600. He shot a series of 97, 100, 100,
100, 98 and 100.

Abhinav, who was the youngest Indian participant at the 2000 Olympic Games, won six gold medals at various international meets in 2001. In the Air rifle event at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, Manchester, he won gold in the Pairs event and silver in the individual event. At the 2004 Olympic Games, he broke the Olympic record but failed to win a medal.

He is a recipient of the Arjuna award in 2001 and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award for the year 2001-2002. (ANI)