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President Pratibha Patil [Images] and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [Images] congratulated Abhinav Bindra on his "golden performance" in bagging India's first-ever individual gold medal at the Beijing [Images] Olympics [Images].

In separate messages, Patil and Singh lauded the achievement of 25-year-old Indian shooter, with the Prime Minister describing the feat as a "golden performance".

Bindra, who qualified in fourth place for the 10m air rifle final, shot an overall score of (596+140.5) 700.5 in a thrilling finale which went right down to the last shot.

His historic feat makes him India's first-ever individual gold medallist, bettering the silver medal feat of double trap shooter Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore [Images] in Athens 2004.