Abhinav Bindra : I did not care whether I won gold or not

If he had to win the 10m Air Rifle event at Beijing and create history, Abhinav Bindra knew he needed to conquer fear–the kind of fear that he could face only in an Olympic final. In the build-up to the event and in the search for perfection, he decided to use a technique used by German special forces- climbing a ‘pizza pole’. Bindra climbed a 40-foot-high pole which became smaller as he neared the summit, the platform at the peak the size of a pizza box.

His exit in the 2004 Athens Olympics had left him in a state of shock, but the pizza pole experience helped him be prepared for it, the 2014 Asian Games bronze medalist said.

Abhinav Bindra also wrote that after a poor warm-up shot before the 2008 finals, his mind rushed back to Athens.

Bindra wrote, “Before the final began, we had five minutes to warm up to shoot the ten most important shots of our life. My first shot in the warm-up was a 4. It was a great shock, and my mind immediately went back to Athens. The first shot in the final was a 10.7, pretty close to bullseye. My experience in the previous Olympics at Athens had taught me a lot about detachment, and I drew from it.“I did not care whether I won the gold or not. The only concern was that I shoot well at the final. And as a result, those ten shots in Beijing were probably the best shots I have ever fired in my life. Even if I had not won a medal, there would have been no regret.

The 2006 World Champion was relieved after the victory, but the drama that ensued after the win left him drained.

“When I finally won it eight years later, it was disastrous on a completely different level. Don’t get me wrong – I knew what I had achieved. I had even anticipated the hysteria that followed, but I did not want to have anything to do with it. I hated every moment of the ‘tamasha’ that followed. I could detach myself while shooting in Beijing, but I just could not detach myself when I came home.

He also wrote about the need for long-term goals for the country to do well at the Olympics.

“Our goals cannot be short-term ones. We have to focus on the 2020 Games in Tokyo and beyond. If we are able to strengthen our grass roots, then I am convinced we can hope to bag more medals.”

“… However, even as I struggled to comprehend what had gone wrong, there was a huge moment for Indian shooting and Indian sport. I was in the stands when Rajyavardhan Rathore won the silver medal in double trap. It was truly a path-breaking performance. I credit him for breaking the glass ceiling and becoming a pioneer for Olympic sports in India,” PTI reported.