It is difficult to talk to Abhinav Bindra and not be caught off guard by his deadpan expressions and dry wit. It is as if this was another discipline apart from shooting that Bindra has been training for years. But that’s Abhinav Bindra for you. He likes to hit the bulls’ eye even with words.
Just as he doesn’t like to waste his shots, he seems similarly hell bent on not wasting words either. Probably that’s one of the reasons when Abhinav Bindra, the only Indian to win an individual Olympic Gold, speaks, everyone puts their one ear forward to listen as closely as possibly. The last time the media shy Bindra spoke, it was about the big news of his retirement from shooting.
One of India’s greatest sportsman is set to call it a day after the Rio Olympics. And although he isn’t too old for another shot at Gold in the next Olympics, Bindra has been there doing the same thing for too many years to take it anymore.
For years, the 33-year-old has spent hours of the day honing his skills and aiming for that target that means the world to him. Now, Bindra wants to shut down that machine that has, hour after hour, run on fuel of dedication and sacrifices. But before that day comes, he will take a shot one last time on the grand stage of the Olympics. It was the same stage where he had created history 8 years ago.
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, got his son to meet 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 Bindra’s journey to greatness.
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However, greatness wasn’t bestowed on the shooter by luck. He deserves every bit of credit for earning the greatness by dodging failures in a way only a champion can. There came many a bend in the road to the shooter’s journey before he made it to the front page of all national dailies in 2008 after his incredible feat at Beijing. Athens 2004 was one such bend.
India’s shooting tbefore 2008 had garnered a sole silver courtesy of Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore’s silver in double trap in 2004. In the same Olympic Games, Bindra had to return empty handed inspite of being one of the hot favourites. 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.
About the heartbreak, Bindra writes in the recently released book My Olympic Journey, “I was shattered. An athlete might have a hundred people who want him or her to win, but when one performs, one is alone. You own your success, you own your failure and you have to overcome it yourself.” And overcome he did.
The Athens experience transformed Bindra and steeled his resolve to win the medal in Beijing. Ahead of Beijing, the shooter clinched Gold in the World Championships in 2006 in Zagreb and in process became the first Indian shooter to achieve the feat.
Bindra didn’t want to take any chances ahead of the big event in Beijing and did everything possible to keep himself in the zone as sportsmen like to call it. He got his brain mapped, drank Yak’s milk and just weeks ahead of the Olympics, climbed 40 foot high pizza pole in Munich to conquer the fear that could have gripped him in the Olympic Finals, as it did on that forgettable day four years ago in Athens.
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The perfectionist wasn’t leaving any stone unturned. “In a sport like shooting, winning doesn’t come easily. You have to suffer. You can’t go in thinking that you will return with a medal. It just doesn’t work that way. To win a gold medal, you need to be on the edge, and that’s exactly how i felt.” Bindra writes explaining his seemingly crazy decision to climb Pizza Pole, a training used by the German special forces, few days ahead of his event in Beijing.
Eight years after the Beijing Gold, Bindra has matured even more and knows that just a couple of days after the Olympic kicks off in Rio, his Olympic journey would be over. Thus, the hunger is even greater. His measured words won’t let you know that but the spectacles can’t hide it in those big eyes of his.
Bindra has already travelled to Rio de Janeiro to get a feel of what it would be like when he boards the flight in August. Before that, he will spend hours practising in the Rio like range that he has recreated behind his house.
After his success that catapulted him to national fame. the reticent shooter has talked about detaching himself from it all to stay focused innumerable times. The greatest test of his ability to detach himself then awaits him in Rio.
Behind him there would be hopes of a billion plus nation and ahead of him a life that he hasn’t experienced in ages, a life without the dream of an Olympic medal. That’s when the Abhinav Bindra, made piece by piece by years of discipline, determination and hard work, will need to rise up to that one moment that can end his career on the greatest note with a Gold.
