Abhinav Bindra's search for excellence & his demons, as told by his father

0.6 – As it turned out, that is often how slender the difference between success and defeat is. Abhinav Bindra found that out during the shoot-off against Ukraine's Serhiy Kulish in the finals of the men's 10m air rifle event at Rio. However, despite that result, Bindra leaves behind a legacy which will be hard to match for any athlete who is looking to succeed him.

“During that period, he also had this injury which bothered him a lot. The finger he uses to pull the trigger was getting numb. So he had to undergo special exercises and medication to get it sorted.

At the start of his career, Bindra did not face a hurdle which most of the Indian athletes face in their career—financial hardship. His father could afford to build a private range, and later invest in a farmhouse where Bindra could practice without facing any commotion.

“My memory jogs back to that day in 1998. We were staying in a makeshift building in Chandigarh. Since it was not possible to create any shooting facilities there, Abhinav used to go to the Chandigarh range. That place, though was very poorly maintained and Abhinav wasn’t too keen to carry on practicing there. We had lawns in outskirts of Chandigarh and Abhinav asked me if we could build a range there. So I built a small, one-lane range there.

Everyone has his battles to fight, and Bindra's was with himself. Perfectionists can get tormented by failures, and often Bindra came close to quitting.

However, money and fortune often brings along indolence and conceit. But not for Bindra. He was a perfectionist, and he stopped at nothing in his quest for excellence. Everyone has his battles to fight, and Bindra's was with himself. Perfectionists can get tormented by failures, and often Bindra came close to quitting. But, even during the lows of his career, Bindra never provided excuses – be it the faulty floor at Athens, or the broken sighter at Rio.

“There have also been times when he felt like giving up. After Athens, he didn’t want to shoot. He came and told us, ‘I am going to burn by rifle.’ All those times were full of frustration. But he is not the one to come up with excuses, even though there was genuinely something wrong.

“At Athens, as we know now, the floor of the finals hall was faulty. He never spoke about it. At Beijing, he won the gold but those 2-3 minutes he went through extreme torture when he got to know that his rifle was tampered with. He just dealt with it. Even on Monday, he fell off the table on which he was sitting before the qualifier and broke his sighter. For a shooter, these things play with your mind a lot. But Abhinav is one person who never complains – he did not mention Monday’s incident to us as well. We got to know about it only from media reports,” Bindra's father wrote.

Whatever challenges Bindra had faced during his professional career, perhaps the biggest awaits him now. To find a new objective in life after dedicating the best part of one's life towards achieving a single goal is challenging. But one thing we can be sure about as he walks away from his range towards a life where he won't have a trigger next to his finger - Bindra will settle for nothing less than perfection.

“But as a father and a fan, I look back at Abhinav’s journey with great satisfaction.

Apjit Bindra

“Abhinav is just 33. He has his whole life in front of him. He now wants to lead a life where shooting is not an everyday part. Proper, competitive shooting I mean. So he has to indulge in some business or some kind of work.

“He has to survive. I wish…we have our own family business…if it interests him, he carries it on. If it does not interest him, he can do whatever he wants. He has great aura and 20 years of sporting experience. He is one of the very few who has tried and fought every system in the world and is a powerhouse of knowledge. His interests go much beyond shooting. I also wish he marries and settles down. But I am guessing he will take some time off after returning from Rio and think over his options. He will need that break. It’s been a whirlwind journey for us. And the outpouring of feelings for Abhinav is overwhelming. He may not have won a medal in his last tournament. But for me, he will always be a winner,” his father wrote for Indian Express.