Who is Vijay Kumar (sport shooter)?

Vijay Kumar (born 1986) is a sport shooter from India. He won the silver medal in the individual 25 metre rapid fire pistol event at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Kumar hails from Harsour village of Hamirpur district of Himachal Pradesh and is presently a serving subedar in the Indian Army. Vijay Kumar is currently supported by the Olympic Gold Quest initiative.


NEWS UPDATE :

London, Aug 3: India won its second medal at the London Olympics 2012 when shooter Vijay Kumar claimed silver in Men's 25m Rapid Fire Pistol here at the Royal Artillery Barracks on Friday.

This was also fourth successive shooting medal for India in Olympics. Rajyavardhan Rathore (silver, Athens 2004), Abhinav Bindra (gold, Beijing 2008) and this edition Narang and Vijay.

"I am very happy that I have won a medal in my first Olympics. There was a lot of pressure on me. I stuck to my plans and executed them well," Vijay told NDTV.

Olympic silver medalist, Rathore said he was "proud to be an Indian and from the Indian army. He tweeted, (@Ra_THORe) "I am so proud to be indian today, so proud to be from the Indian Army and so proud to represent Indian Shooting; thank you Vijay Kumar :)."

The 26-year-old shot a sequence of 5, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 4 and 2 for a total of 30 in the final which was over eight series.

Vijay, who hails from Harsour village in Himachal Pradesh, has won five golds at Commonwealth Games. He won two golds at the Delhi Commonwealth Games in 2010.

Narang had won bronze. Vijay took silver with a score of 30 in the final. Cuban shooter Leuris Pupo with a score of 34 topped while China's Feng Ding was bronze medalist (score 27).

In the second stage of qualifying earlier in the day, Vijay, with a score of 585, had broken the Olympic record of 583.

On Thursday he had shot a score of 293 in Stage 1 of the qualification. Vijay had earlier failed to make the final of 10m Air Pistol event.

Also on Friday, another Indian shooter Joydeep Karmakar missed bronze by a whisker in the men's 50m Rifle Prone event.

Gagan Narang had failed to qualify for the final in the same event. Karmakar was fourth with a score of 699.1. Rajmond Debevec of Slovenia took bronze with 701.0.

He shot a sequence of 10.1, 10.6, 10.7, 10.5, 10.7, 10.2, 10.0, 10.2, 10.7, 10.4 for a total of 104.1 in the final.

Sergei Martynov of Belarus set a new world record of 705.5 for gold. Belgium's Lionel Cox took silver with score of 701.2.