Abhinav Bindra will hold a special place in every Indian heart as a sports shooter to have brought home the first individual gold medal at the Olympics. It came in the men’s 10m air rifle event at the Beijing Games in 2008.
Since then, years have rolled by but the memories are afresh. So, how did this gritty shooter make the Olympic grade? Sweat blood and toil? Abhinav answered them all during the SSVM Transforming India Conclave at the SSVM World School recently. “I had a reluctant start to the sport. Frankly speaking, I sort of hated it while at the boarding school in Dehradun,” he says.
However, the day school in Chandigarh and his introduction to shooting one day by his family changed his life. “That day, I fell in love with the sport. To be somewhat successful in it, all I had to do was to stand still. No running around was required,” he adds.
As a child, Bindra was fond of creating car (F3) models. He enjoyed putting all those tiny pieces to create them. “The sport of shooting is something like that. You will have to bring all things together, such as your stability, mind and heart to make that perfect shot.”
Former World and Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra, who won the 10m air rifle gold, in action during the 8th Asian Airgun Championship at the Dr. Karni Singh Range,Tughlakabad, in New Delhi on September 27, 2015.
| Photo Credit:
SANDEEP SAXENA
According to him, a great shot is never fired. It is built. He invested time to build his passion. “I did not have a good eye and I wasn’t the most gifted person but my talent was to work hard, to persevere and never to give up,” he says, adding: “Talent can only take you a certain distance. It can open the door for you but to become a champion, you will have to work hard.”
The Padma Bhushan awardee was only 17 years old in 2000, when he travelled to Sydney for the Olympics. He was the youngest Indian participant. “There were over 10,000 participants and I kind of felt like a kid in a candy store but all of us coming together gave me a great feeling,” he says.
Abhinav was a big fan of the Williams sisters. “My fellow shooter Anwer Sultan and I spotted them at the Olympics dining area. We requested them for a photograph and they were gracious enough to say okay. We had no mobile phones then, so we rushed to our room to get a camera and to a shop nearby for the film roll. Till then, they patiently waited and we clicked a rare photo with the two global superstars,” he says.
“Respect is not something reserved for important people: I learnt my life’s first big lesson that day,” he adds. About success and failures, he says he was in the best form of his life at the 2004 Athens Games. “I broke the Olympic record in the qualification round with a score of 597 to enter the final. All I had to do was to fire ten good shots but I shot my worst that day. I was heartbroken. This failure changed the way I looked at the sport.”
When the whole world came tumbling down, he cried to his mother. “My mother told me, do not worry, you will win gold four years from now. This gave me hope,” says Abhinav, who went on to win the gold at Beijing.
Beijing brought in a bit of a crisis situation for him as he shot a score of four during the warm up round before the final. “I never shot a score like that in all my life but I did not give up. Before the final, I had to make a mathematical calculation on how to bring my score from 8.5 to 10.9. My math worked though I failed in maths in school,” says Bindra.
“The Olympic Games never come once in four years to me but every day. I carried that mindset and achieved my goal of winning the gold,” he adds.
But did the shining metal at the big Games give him joy? “For many, a gold medal equals happiness but I made happiness my gold medal. The gold only gave me pride but not permanent happiness. Day to day joy is different. The act of giving back, the act of empowering others is what gives me lasting happiness. Life is not going to be thrilling every day. I started finding joy in my efforts, joy in the little things in life we all take for granted.”
How about the pressure cooker situation at the Olympics? “Pressure is not the best feeling but the important thing is to not overcome it but accept it. Stop resisting, instead accept as it comes.”
A final word of advice from the shooting star before he left the city: “I would encourage you all to practice gratitude.”
Published – September 07, 2026 03:33 pm IST
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