LONDON: Ace marksman Gagan Narang shot his way to the men's 10m air rifle bronze medal after watching compatriot and Beijing Games gold medalist Abhinav Bindra fall by the wayside in the preliminaries as India scooped up its first medal at the Olympic Games on Monday.

Narang held his nerve in a gripping 8-man finale to stave off the challenge of Chinese rival Wang Tao bagging the third spot with an aggregate of 701.1, behind gold medal winner Alin George Moldoveanu ofRomania and Italian world No 1 Niccolo Campriani who tallied 702.1 and 701.5 respectively.

Narang was bang on target from the beginning of competition, scoring two successive 100s, but a 98 in the third series of qualifiers somewhat let down the quadruple gold medal winner at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

The 29-year-old Punjabi based out of Hyderabad, however, kept his cool and fought his way back into the reckoning for the medal round with a perfect 100 in the fourth series and then clinched the final spot as the third best performer by notching two more 100s in his last two rounds.

Narang, will also compete in the 50m rifle 3-position and prone events.

The 29-year-old's medal-winning effort, the first for India on the third day of competitions here, has lifted the spirits of the Indian camp who were left dazed by the unexpected elimination of Bindra in the qualifying rounds.

While Narang sailed into the medal round with a total of 598 out of 600 in the preliminaries before clinching the bronze, Bindra started poorly that cost him dearly in the race to earn the berth in the finals.

Bindra, who created history and a frenzy four years ago at Beijing when he won the gold medal in the men's 10m air rifle event --the first ever individual Olympic title won by an Indian --performed way below par and made a tame exit.

He ended up a distant 16th from 47 competitions to end his campaign in the Games on a disappointing note.

Bindra began the defence of his title with two 99s in the first two series before coming back strongly by getting two perfect 10s for consecutive 100s in the third and fourth rounds.

The two 100s gave Bindra the lift and the belief he badly needed after dropping a point each in the first two sets.

However, a 99 in the fifth and an even poorer outing in the last series where he could score just 97, dashed Bindra's chances of earning a berth in the eight-man finals.

The man who became the pin-up boy of Indian shooting after his heroics in Beijing in 2008 later conceded he was inconsistent and it was simply not his day.

"This was not my day. I started slowly and there was a lot of pressure. It was a very highly competitive field, my performance went up and down," Bindra told reporters after his disappointing show.

This was the only event the 29-year-old Bindra was taking part, thereby cutting short his campaign in the ongoing Games, but he insisted he has no plans to retire.

"It has been a nice journey for me and I have worked hard for this, but unfortunately, I could not make it to the finals," he added.