India earned the distinction of winning more than two medals from a single edition of the games for the first time in history and its first eve individual gold,for a total of three.India finished 50th among the 87 countries which won at least one medal.

Abhinav Bindra won the olympic gold medal for the 10-meter air rifle event on august 11,2008,thus bagging for independent india its first individual olympic gold.The gold was a improvment on the silver won by another shooter,double marksman Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore,in the athens olympics in 2004.

Sushil Kumar won for india a most unexpected bronze medal in the 66kg category freestyle wrestling competition in the olympics on august 20,2008.

On the august 22,2008,vijyender kumar,put up a brave show but went down fighting to cuba’s emilio correa bayeaux in the semi-finals of the 75kg boxing category.Vijender still finished with bronze-India’s first olympic medal in boxing.