Incheon, South Korea: India’s lone individual Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra plans to leave full-time shooting after competing in his favourite 10-metre air rifle event in the Asian Games on Tuesday.

“Tomorrow will mark the end of my professional shooting life!,” Bindra, 31, tweeted on Monday, adding “I will however still shoot, compete as a hobby shooter training twice a week.”

Bindra earned the honour of being “one in a billion” when he won the 10-metre air rifle title at the Beijing Games in 2008 to become India’s first - and so far only - individual Olympic champion.

India has won eight other Olympic golds, but all of them in field hockey till 1980.

Despite giving up serious shooting, Bindra still hopes to qualify for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

“And yes I will still try to be at Rio and my bio is now most appropriate! Great times and am sure there will be a few more!,” he added.

Bindra, who was the youngest participant at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, has fourth Commonwealth Gold medal. His previous three golds were in pairs and singles in Glasgow. He won singles silver medals in 2002 and 2010, and bronze in 2006.

Surprisingly, Bindra has only one Asian Games medal, a silver that came in the 2010 edition in Guangzhou. Perhaps a gold here at Incheon would be the perfect ending to an illustrious career that inspired many.

Indian shooters, meanwhile, kept up their fine performance in the Games with the women’s team winning the bronze medal in the 25 metre pistol event at the Ongnyeon International Shooting Range here.

The Indian team comprising Rahi Sarnobat (580), Anisa Sayyed (577) and Heena Sidhu (572) shot a total of 1,729 to claim the bronze medal. Rahi was the only Indian to qualify for the semi-final of the individual event.

The team gold went to the South Korean team of Kim Jangmi (584), Kwak Junghye (583) and Lee Jungeun (581) with an accumulated score of 1,748. China got the silver after the trio of Zhang Jingjing (591), Chen Ying (580) and Zhou Qingyuan (576) shot a total of 1,747.

The bronze was India’s fifth medal from the Asian Games and fourth from the shooting range. Jitu Rai won the gold medal in the 50-metre pistol event and led the 10-metre air pistol team to a bronze. Shweta Chaudhry also won the bronze medal in the women’s 10-metre air pistol event.