With a momentous feat on that fateful day in Beijing in 2008 when he captured the Gold in the Men’s 10m Air Rifle, Abhinav Bindra has already booked his place among the pantheon of Indian Olympians. No one before him and no one after him has managed to bag an individual Olympic Gold medal for India. When Bindra trains his rifle on the target for one final time in Rio in a few hours from now, he would be making a bid to jump to the top of that Pantheon if he can add another medal to his tally.
The 33-year-old Bindra, who was also the first Indian shooter to win the Gold at World Championships in Zagreb in 2006, has already announced his decision to quit the sport after the Rio carnival comes to an end. That leaves the shooter with one final chance to win a medal in the Olympics and become only the second individual from the country to win medals across different Olympics.
No one apart from wrestler Sushil Kumar has won medals in multiple Olympics for India. Kumar, who will not be seen in action in Rio, won a Bronze in the 2008 Beijing Games and followed it up with another Bronze at 2012 London edition. If one has to bet his life on someone from the 2016 contingent to equal Kumar’s tremendous feat, one would choose the 33-year-old from Mohali.
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With a Gold already in his kitty, if Bindra can manage another medal today in his 10m Air Rifle event, he is sure to become the greatest Olympian of the country. Although, long before Bindra, India’s Hockey dominated the Olympics and won a whopping 8 Gold Medals, a feat unthinkable now. However, as unfair as it would seem to pit Bindra against a certain Dhyan Chand, one must take into account that despite the legend’s wizardry with the stick, it was the team that won. Bindra’s feats would walk alone in the hall of fame of Indian Olympians.
An inspiration to Indians
Bindra’s greatness as an Olympian doesn’t merely derive from his Gold fetching feat in Beijing eight years ago. Instead, it lies in how the marksman became the catalyst for an entire generation to take up shooting. Apurvi Chandela, one of the three Indian women shooters in Rio, was one of the many who was left wowed by the magnitude of Bindra’s achievement. Chandela was so inspired by that one gold that she ditched her plans of becoming a sports journalist and headed for the local shooting range to take up rifle shooting.
Bindra’s medal changed the game for sports in India. Neglected and decaying under the Goliath-like shadow of Cricket, Olympic sports captured the imagination of many youngsters in the country in the right earnest from the day when Bindra’s gleaming face flashed across through all television screens with the Gold around his neck.
Also read: Can Abhinav Bindra deliver the glorious swansong his career deserves?
Although, Bindra couldn’t replicate his heroics in London, but the medal tally screamed of the fillip that the shooter’s Beijing Gold had given to many Indian sportsmen. The three medals of Beijing had now been converted to six and the promise in Rio is of a double digit number in the medals column against India’s name. Thanks to Bindra, a nation that was merely making up the numbers in earlier editions of the quadrennial event was now threatening the best in their business. That Beijing Gold broke the glass ceiling and gave many Indian sportsmen the belief that it could be achieved.
Hard word and discipline, the keys for Bindra
To credit an individual for so much might seem a little misplaced, but more than the medal, it was the story of hours of practice and discipline that made many in the country sit down and notice other sports. One might not easily want to associate the word ‘arduous’ with Bindra’s shooting journey for by the virtue of being born in Punjab’s one of the most affluent families, Abhinav had everything available to him at a call away. But that’s just the first of many mistakes of judgment that people often make when it comes to Abhinav Bindra.
The shooter, who grew up idolizing the great Carl Lewis, sacrificed almost everything that an average teenager enjoys to dedicate his life to the sport of shooting, spending 13-14 hours training alone from an early age. The sacrifices continue even now, despite his family looking for the suitable girl for the golden boy, Bindra has put all such plans on hold. After all, he has no time to give his single-minded devotion to anything apart from shooting.
A young Abhinav Bindra first showed interest in shooting while he was studying at the St Stephen’s School in Chandigarh. His father AS Bindra, a businessman, introduced his son to Colonel JS Dhillon in July 1995. The teenager, who was unlike anyone when it came to maturity and determination, would go on to train for five years under his tutelage and would show signs of greatness soon.
Within seven months, he won his first gold medal in Chandigarh and in the same year cranked up a perfect 600/600 score. This was the beginning of a journey that culminated in him bagging the all elusive Gold for India in Beijing in 2008. The journey, though, was far from picture perfect.
Athens heartbreak leads to redemption in Beijing
Before Beijing there was Athens, a memory that a young Bindra had trouble dealing with. In the qualification, Bindra shot 597 out of 600 and broke the Olympic record and looked in just the touch needed to secure a place on the podium. But things went awry in the final and the Indian ended seventh with the lowest score. ‘Shattered’ is how Bindra recollects his memory of his own self after the hara-kiri.
But the shooter redeemed himself in a way that reeks of a champion. First came the Gold in the World Championships in 2006 in Zagreb and then came the Beijing Gold that made him the darling of the whole nation in a matter of a few hours.
A lot has changed since that fateful day of 2008. A somewhat forced autobiography came out, a failed bid at London happened and multiple retirement announcements and reiterations came from Bindra. But the resolve is still pretty much there in those big eyes of his. The desperation to once again live that golden moment of his life was there for everyone to see in the way Bindra took to train himself ahead of his final Olympic appearance.
Bindra will be walking into the sunset after his event tonight. And as he said in an interview just before leaving for Rio that he would be proud of himself even if he doesn’t win a medal in Rio, so would be many of his well-wishers. But for those 20 years of discipline, determination, devotion and multitude of sacrifices made on the way, it would be fitting if the marksman can claim another medal to rise up to become the greatest Indian Olympian.
