Tag Archive for 'Abhinav Bindra'

Abhinav Bindra chronicles his journey to Olympic gold

Published on November 3, 2011 in Books and Sport. 0 Comments Tags: Abhinav Bindra, Biography, In A Shot at History: My Obsessive Journey to Olympic Gold, India, Olympics, Rohit Brijnath, Shooter.

India’s first individual Olympics gold medallist (Beijing 2008), shooter Abhinav Bindra, 29, stresses that it wasn’t talent but sheer perseverance that pushed him to the top. In an interview with Mint, he talks about his biography In A Shot at History: My Obsessive Journey to Olympic Gold, co-authored withsports writer and columnist Rohit Brijnath:

What inspired you to write this book?

The biggest motivation was to make an attempt to share my experience with people and give them an insight into my journey, into my life, my sport and me as an individual. I hope some young people benefit from it. I really believe everybody has to chart their own course and if somebody benefits, I’ll be delighted.

Much has been said about your dedication and hard work. Does the book deal with that aspect?

I am not talented at all. If I could achieve any amount of success, anybody can. It’s all about hard work, a lot of hard work. It’s about a lot of perseverance where you have to be committed and true to your goal. If you do that, no barrier is hard enough to cross. More:

Let the games begin

Published on October 3, 2010 in Sport. 2 Comments Tags: A R Rehman, Abhinav Bindra, Commonwealth Games, CWG opening ceremony, CWG theme song, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Jiyo Utho Bado Jeeto, Prince Charles, Suresh Kalmadi, Sushil Kumar.

AW reports on the hits and misses from Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, 2010.

Hits

1. The 65,000 people in the audience were everything a good audience is supposed to be. Disciplined, courteous, sporting – they even cheered loudly for the Pakistan contingent.

2. The volunteers and school children.

3. Keshava, the seven-year-old tabla player from Puducherry.

4. Audience cheer-o-meter: Loudest cheers and a standing ovation for the 619-member Indian contingent led by shooter and India’s only individual gold winner Abhinav Bindra (he also took the oath on behalf of all the athletes present). Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit got loud cheers every time her name was mentioned, big rounds of applause also for former President APJ Abdul Kalam, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Wrestler Sushil Kumar holding the Queen’s baton also greeted with loud cheers.

5. The fireworks, in a word, dazzling.

6. Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, in two words, also dazzling.

7. The Rs 44 crore aerostat, worth perhaps every crore.

Misses:

1. Suresh Kalmadi, jeered and booed.

2. Interminable speeches (Suresh Kalmadi, President Pratibha Patil, Prince Charles, Mike Fennell, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh): who wants to hear politicians and officials mouthing platitudes at a games?

3. The classical dance sequence was b-o-r-i-n-g.

4. By singing Jai ho, his Oscar winning song from Slumdog Millionaire (not exactly the best movie to showcase India), after his theme song Jiyo, Utho, Bado Jeeto, A.R Rehman seriously devalued the worth of the theme song. The theme song should have been the grand finale. Last word of the ceremony.

5. The ceremony was one hour too long, nothing would have been lost with a tighter, more focused ceremony.

Indian shooter’s road to Beijing

Published on August 25, 2008 in Sport. 0 Comments Tags: Abhinav Bindra, Beijing Olympics, Boxing, gold medal, India, Indian shooter, Sushil Kumar, Vijender Kumar, Wrestling.

He took India by storm by winning the country’s first-ever individual Olympic Gold. At 26, Abhinav Bindra‘s road to Beijing was a personal battle that he won convincingly. In conversation with Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24×7′s Walk the Talk, the ace shooter talks about the sport, his life, and the years of hard work. From the Indian Express:

Tell us about the loneliness of the shooter. We’ve all heard the loneliness of a long-distance runner.

Yes, it’s a quiet sport. It’s almost meditative because you are competing against your own self and that’s it. You’re competing against others, but the performance depends on the competition against your own self. So it’s a quiet and lonely battle.

And you don’t know what others are doing, because on one command all of you are almost shooting together.

Yes. You get to know after the shot is fired, but you shoot against yourself.

So tell me what goes on at the deck point. Who are you talking to when you are by yourself at the range?

When you are competing, there are so many doubts and you are all the time fighting against yourself. A part of you just doesn’t want to believe that it’s gonna happen and, you’re just trying to be quiet and that chatter going on in your head, and you are trying to shut up and focus on the job at hand.

Three medalists provide glimpse of a new India

India’s three gold medals represent vastly different Indias that today exist side by side, and the intensity of the new aspirations of young Indians. Somini Sengupta in International Herald Tribune:

Sushil Kumar

Vijender Kumar

One is the son of a prosperous businessman with an Olympic-size shooting range in his backyard. Another grew up in a dusty village, sparring with his brother for use of a shared family bicycle. A third spent most of his youth in a musty, mouse-infested room at a wrestling camp here in the capital.

In the last two weeks, each won a medal for his country in Beijing, making it India’s best performance at an Olympics.

Many in this country see the victories as being emblematic of a rise of a new India. Actually, they represent vastly different Indias that today exist side by side and the intensity of the new aspirations of young Indians up and down the social ladder.

Bindra, the silent killer

Published on August 23, 2008 in Sport. 0 Comments Tags: Abhinav Bindra, Olympics, Shunya.

In his blog Shunya, Namit Arora tells us why, despite the national euphoria, Olympic medals leave him unmoved.

Until Beijing, the last gold India had won at the Olympics was in 1980; no Indian had ever won an individual gold. This dismal record has been a source of shame for countless Indians. Every four years, a puny contingent would trudge to a foreign city, crash out, and the question would arise again: Why do Indians fare so badly? Answers would again span the whole spectrum: economics, culture, genetics, climate, politics, cricket, and more.

India’s golden boy

Published on August 11, 2008 in Sport. 0 Comments Tags: Abhinav Bindra, Beijing Olympics 2008, gold medal, Olympics.

India’s ace shooter, the 26-year-old Abhinav Bindra has won a first-ever individual Olympic Gold medal for his country. At the Beijing Shooting Range, Bindra won the gold in the 10m Air Rifle event by scoring 700.5 points in the final.

The last time India won a gold was in the 1980 Moscow Olympics when the hockey team lifted the medal.

Anirban Roy posts details on Abhinav’s victory in the Reuters blog:

Abhinav Bindra won India’s first ever individual Olympic gold medal on Monday with a thrilling come-from-behind victory in the men’s 10m air rifle.

Bindra had been fourth after qualifying but had a brilliant final round and even hit a near perfect 10.8 on his last shot to pull in front of Henri Hakkinen of Finland, who dropped to bronze with a poor final shot of 9.7.

That allowed China’s Zhu Qinan, the defending Olympic champion and heavy favourite, to pass him on his final shot and win the silver medal.

“It’s just great,” Bindra told Reuters just before climbing on to the podium.

Check out Abhinav’s blog, Abhinav Bindra’s Road to Beijing at: http://abhinavbindra.blogspot.com/ to leave him a message of congratualations, or post a comment here and we’ll forward it to him.

Back home in India, there’s euphoria in college canteens and office cubicles, reports IANS (via Hindustan Times)

As the national anthem played and the Indian tricolour rose high when Abhinav Bindra received India’s first individual Olympic gold medal in Beijing on Monday, euphoria erupted in college canteens and office cubicles back home.

Anjan Katna, who works with Emergent Ventures in Gurgaon in the capital’s outskirts, said the entire office broke into loud applause as soon as they saw the news about Bindra’s success being flashed on TV channels in the morning.

A Doon School alumn, Abhinav Bindra has been profiled briefly in Hindustan Times here or check his Wiki profile here.

And here’s the YouTube clip of Bindra receiving his medal

httpv://in.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Qckb1qwsE

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