As Abhinav Bindra walked out of the Deodoro stadium after narrowly finishing fourth in the 10m Air Rifle final, a 50 journalist strong media contingent waited to greet him. Most people were looking for that elusive quote to create front page headlines for their publications back in India. However, unnerved as he was till the last shot of his career at the Rio Olympics, the 33-year old’s answers were monosyllabic and to the point.
The most generic question in everyone’s mind, “How would you assess your own Olympic career so far” or “Sir, which was your favourite Olympic moment.” The four time Olympian always had a fixed answer, “It was decent” or “It was an okay Olympic career” or even “It was not great.”
Perfection, not humility
An alarming self analysis for India’s only individual gold Olympic medallist, but then again this is a man who flashed laser into his eyes while practicing for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. While speaking exlcusively to Sportskeeda, I couldn’t help but bring this anecdote from the media interaction up. Why would India’s most successful individual Olympian even remotely call himself average or unsuccessful. On replying, he asked me, “I’ve won one gold medal, and reached two finals, but after four Olympic editions, how many times has the Indian flag been raised during the victory ceremony?” It was a self explanatory counter question highlighting his personality of perfectionism, patriotism and simply winning every tournament he was a part of. However, Abhinav highlighted today’s bronze medal shootout as a lottery that he lost.
He said, “If I’m a part of something, I like to win, like every athlete who takes part would. I'm happy that I've been able to fight for my country for the last 20 years. Quantification of result out can’t be done with medals solely, I think I had a great outing today and the only thing that kept me from a medal was that elusive shot. It’s a lottery that I’ve always been waiting to win. Unfortunately, there will be no more attempts to win one again.”
Round two and the question was more direct this time, “How can India’s most succsssful Olympian feel that his Olympic career wasn’t good enough?" True to his style of keeping the answers short, Abhinav replied “there could’ve been more.” Ever since his gold medal win at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, he has won as many as 11 international multi sporting event medals. A decade and a half of shooting and more importantly winning at the senior level is yet to create a comfort zone in shooting for Abhinav.
On being asked why he was willing to quit something he loved at a relatively young age of 33, he replied, “there is always something I can be better at apart from shooting, I’m excited about this new phase of my life and where it takes me. I’m not going to get into coaching, because I know for a fact that my students will run away in two hours. Administration is politics, and at this stage of my life I need to make a living. Hence, it’s not something that I have in my plans as of now. If I do take up something, if I do take up something it's going to be an honorary role.”
If I start coaching, my students will runaway in two hours: Abhinav
This particular reply indicated a complete cut-off from shooting in the coming. India’s junior shooting team is currently one of the top ranked in the world, with the squad also finishing third at the recently concluded World Cup. Hence, Abhinav’s exit could mean a massive loss of experience from an individual, who has essentially built everything from scratch, purely based on his own talent, merit and self admittedly, mistakes made over time. He added, “I think I've always made it very clear, that I’m open to being approached by any of the juniors. In fact, my organisation is supporting 30 young Indian shooters, keeping Tokyo as a target. However, as I said, this is another stage of life, that might garner a new interest and I might just be better at that. If I get bored than I can always plant a vegetable garden by replacing the range in my backyard.”
Abhinav completely dismissed any chances of a potential return to the sport. He said, “I feel its about time I step aside and let other more enthusiastic juniors take my place. We have some really talented shooters, who might and well do much differenly. It’s my time to watch( from the sidelines.” His narrow .2 point margin losst at the event yesteday was brutal and highlight how harsh sport can be. In 2008, Abhinav earmarked a benchmark, which is yet to be outsted by anyone. A single minded devotion in bettering his technique and application perfectionism to every facet of life has successfull created an Olympic gold medallist.
The entire shooting community is gutted by Abhinav's final loss, but also thankful for his contribution to not just shooting but sport in India.
There can never be another Abhinav Bindra for India
The country can never have another first individual gold medallist in Olympic history, making him the most successful till date.His former roommate and Heena Sidhu’s coach said, “We used to share rooms during the junior days, but once he graduated to the senior level he completely stopped training with others, because he wanted to be cut off from all politics and negativity. A decision, which did well for him. Even in those days you could see the amount of passion he had for shooting. He was breathing and just wanted to be the best in the world. He made the correct decision at the time and see where he has reached.”
London 2012 bronze medallist, Gagan Narang finished 23rd , despite having a solid start in the event. He told Sportskeeda, “If you put things into context, we put in 4 years of hard work to participate for just 30 minutes. Especially in India, where infrastructure is still building. Today, we can’t say whether his score was high or low, if his was a mm to the centre it was going to be a bronze anwyas. So being successful at that time highlighted how landmark his 2008 achievement was. What he has done will never be or will be extremely difficult to match in India.”
Olympic Gold Quest’s (OGQ) Viren Rasquinha said “Abhinav’s contribution to India’s Olympic history will be difficult to quantify. Every Indian who participates in the Olympics, keeps him as the benchmark and example. I feel he will at one point join administration, as he is a smart guy, who will easily adapt to the environment and the Sports Ministry should make that effort to use his experience in the future for other potential Olympians.”
Many might take Abhinav’s belief of not being a successful Olympian as humility, but self admittedly Abhinav always felt that he was not a naturally gifted athlete. He added, “I know myself that there were and are thousands of athletes more gifted than me. However, what set me apart if it did at all, was my hard work, I chose to work hard to bring in consistency and that’s what helps.” Regardless of whether Abhinav returns to shooting, his experiences have been etched into India’s sporting folklore, and be rest assured that the perfectionist put in equal conviction in each bullet shot, across a career that spanned two decades.
