Abhinav Bindra: Pride of India

Abhinav Bindra has made the whole nation feel proud. And rightly so, since he has become the first Indian individual to fetch gold medal though the country has been participating in the Olympics for 108 years. Before Abhinav no Indian had ever won a gold medal in an individual event. That is an absolute achievement.

Not only Abhinav Bindra has written his name in record books with gold letters by winning the 10 meter air rifle event at the Beijing Games 2008, but also ended more than a century old drought of any medal in individual category and India's 28-year-old gold drought since the hockey team fetched the top honour in the Moscow Olympics in 1980.

The historic victory for the young Abhinav from Chandigarh, in one of the most thrilling shooting finals in Olympic history, came against heavy odds as he entered the event ranked number 17 in the world, and was pitted against Athens Olympic champion Zhu Qinan of China and Henri Hakkinen of Finland rated much higher than him.

But Bindra proved that hard work and focused display can create topsy-turvy and get over any reputation. Incidentally, Bindra was at deficit against Zhu and Hakkinen after the qualifying round. The other Indian Olympians – from Randhir Singh to Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Olympic silver medalist in 2004 and M.S. Gill, the Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs – all were all close to gold medals but it is Bindra that made all the difference. The moment Bindra fired a near-perfect 10.8, he was a winner.

Bindra finished with 104.5 in the 10-shot final, taking his tally of points to 700.5 as against Zhu's silver winning performance of 699.7 (597102.7) and 699.4 (598101.4) by Hakkinen. His first shot in the final -- a 10.7 -- saw him move to third place and by the time he was preparing to fire his fourth, he had risen to the second spot.

Born on September 28, 1983, Bindra, since his childhood, hardly delivered on a noticeable performance in his initial years. But he came to limelight when he had won a bronze in the 2001 Munich World Cup with a new junior world record score of 597/600. In the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, competing in the air rifle event, Bindra had won a Gold in the Pairs event and Silver in the individual event. In 2001, Bindra received the Arjuna Award. He was conferred the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award for the year 2001-02 as well. In the 2004 Athens Olympics, Bindra had failed to win a medal.

He went on to become the first Indian shooter to win a World Championship gold in Zagreb on July 24, 2006. Due to Bindra’s achievement, India figures in medal tally so early in Beijing Olympics 2008, a distinction we hardly secured in previous Olympics.

Certainly, Bindra is a new role model for millions of young talents in this country, who comes from sports other than cricket. He has shown the way for others to follow. We can hope that inspired by Bindra's success, Indian sportsmen achieve more such medals in Beijing Olympics as well as forthcoming Olympics in 2012 and 2016. Since winning Prudential World Cup Cricket in 1983 raised the cricketing standards of this country and which helped produce master likes Sachin and Kapil, other sports may well get greater attention and we can have world class players in swimming, athletics, football, badminton and tennis.