why is abhinav bindra called the golden boy ?
Answers
bhinav Bindra has made a promise. It's nice of him to still think he owes us. A gold medal should easily satisfy a nation of Olympic Lilliputs but no.
Everyone and his blubbering breadwala is wondering about Bindra's bespectacled seriousness and that droll, somnolent voice. Why wasn't he grinning till his ears disappeared?
How come he didn't handspring on to the podium, snatch the bouquet, smooch his medal and Princess Nora of Lichtenstein who gave it to him? Okay, okay, how about a wobbling chin, then, a shimmer of tears for dharti maa, a little bit of sniffing?
It takes him four hours to reach to his parents who by then have distributed sweets to Chandigarh and surrounding districts, and he asks about his dogs? Is the guy really 26 or can the Nobel Prize for cosmetic surgery finally be instituted?
So, this is the promise: "When I'll be 50, I'll be wild," he says, "I'll grow hair till my shoulders. I'm saving it all up for my old age." For now, we'll just have to be satisfied with the po-faced fellow who, one fine Monday, fired a gun in Beijing and woke up everyone back home with a characteristically, chilled-out, "Hey, good morning, India."
This is India's greatest sporting achievement as it has come on the grandest stage. Arguments can be made in favour of Prakash Padukone's 1981 All England Badminton Championship title in a more athletic sport, but really, India doesn't have to choose. It can just soak in the moment but don't expect Batra Talkies theatrics from the man who delivered it to us.
Bindra shows his Olympic gold medalBindra shows his Olympic gold medal
Rifle shooting is a sport not given to high fives. It revolves around stillness, silence and a purity of focus. It is who Bindra is, it is why he revels in his craft, it is why he is good for Olympic gold. Long time coach Gabriele Buhlmann calls Bindra "an old soul".
The morning after, Bindra sounds young again, laughing more than he usually does. He went to Beijing's Peninsula Hotel for dinner wearing his medal when the waiters suddenly also spotted him on TV and nearly dropped their trays.
Bindra's companions erupted into a pantomime of pointing and nodding. He's the man, they said, he's the one, who with scores tied, squeezed the trigger and produced the shot that set a billion people free.
The night before his competition, Bindra said he didn't sleep. "Not a wink," he told India Today. "I was thinking about the event, I wanted to shoot. I was ready." And he was. So ready to do what he did, that when he fired his last shot at the bow-shaped Beijing shooting range in Shijingshan district, Bindra thought he'd "probably won a medal" because he'd shot a good round.
When he turned to Buhlmann, she gave him a thumbs-up, in Europe the signal for No. 1. To Bindra, it just meant "well done". He asked whether a shootout was needed. She shook her head and as he went closer, she said, "First, you are first. Gold."
"No," said the astonished Indian laughing, "no, no". That's when he noticed the Indians in the hall. They were leaping, shouting, clapping and weeping.
The gold medal took a long time coming for a country that every four years stared its Olympian mediocrity in the face. The victory came just as the temperature began to rise on the Indians with four shooters, tipped for medals, failing to make their finals.
The day after Bindra, two more, including Athens silver medallist Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, went out of the Olympics, but the gold has kept Indian shooting on the map.
Accused of dominating the small stage and treading timidly in the company of giants, Indian shooters needed validation and Olympic gold has given it to them. It has given Bindra both reward and confirmation. In a 10-yearold career, he had done plenty.
As the youngest Indian competitor at an Olympics, he narrowly missed out on the finals in Sydney and made the last eight in Athens, before winning the 2006 World Championship in Zagreb. Just when he should have been readying for Beijing, his back packed up due to the stress of hours spent in a 4 kg shooting suit, hefting a 5 kg gun.
Bindra set aside his gun for six months to re-build his back muscles. What emerged was what Buhlmann described as the same shooter, "in another body". He re-calibrated his technique all over again which took him a year.
For a year he concentrated on fitness and learning about Meridian stretching. "I can run for an hour-and-half now; earlier I couldn't run 10 minutes." Before you dutifully say "wow," Bindra adds, "but that doesn't mean I'm going to be shooting better."