Book: A shot at history – My obsessive journey to Olympic Gold

Author: Abhinav Bindra with Rohit Brijnath

“Now I had won India’s first individual Olympic gold with the highest score ever in an Olympic final”

This is probably the line that I read repeatedly and yet could manage to get goosebumps in every read. Now as I write this, it’s needless to say how much exhilarating it is. Behind this one line, there have been years of efforts, gallons of bullets, loads of concentration and indefinable dedication. Wonderful!

I’ve always watched out for the Indian shooters in all the international championships/competitions. May be, it all started when I first heard about the Olympic silver medal that he had won in the Athens Olympics in 2004. Since then India has been continuously seeing one or the other Indian on the podium, be it world championships, Olympics, Asian games or Commonwealth games.

Though I’ve been a follower of major events I could never get a chance to watch the live telecast from the shooting arena. Thanks to the ‘flipkart’ search list which brought this book to my sight and with that the shooting ‘engineering’ to my knowledge. I called it ‘engineering’ because the shooting engineer, Mr. Bindra, has not failed to mention any point on how to shoot for the best.

Especially, every care that Abhinav and his team have taken to perform the world’s best on the world’s biggest stage, as narrated in this book, has mesmerized me. I literally told myself “this is called the obsession dude”!

Having no problem economically, Abhinav has been lucky in many ways. But ironically, money cannot make you wish for an Olympic medal; money cannot bring discipline to you; money can neither make you strive for perfection nor can it save you from having sleepless nights before the tournaments. All that an obsession can do to you is, after all, all the above.

Rivalry with the contemporaries is the lowest costing fuel that ignites a deep wish to be the best. That’s enough to march on to the podium as well. It’s nice to have. Rivalry is not a negativity to have provide you ensure it’s positive outcome with your gesture. Abhinav Bindra has been successful in doing so.

A loss can easily bring down you deep into the misery. To get back on track you need a team that teams up with you against the loss. The team could consists of your trainers, parents, friends etc but at the same time not too many too. That’s a real bliss for any sportsperson, for that matter, for any person too.

You stand to shoot your last 10 shots in the Olympic final, your gun shoots a sighting shot of 4, which you have never shot since that year you have become a teenager, and you must shot your best to win a medal in your next shots, what would you go through? I’m sure not everyone can handle this. And I’m damn sure not even few can control their heart beat. By doing all this, and still could manage to win an Olympic gold for his country shows the nerves of the toughest metal on earth.

“I won, she ordered two Kilograms of ladoos. The media poured in, eventually she needed 60 Kilograms”

A typical scene seen in our country! Even before you realize that your son/daughter/brother/sister has won it, you would be demanded to distribute the Mithaiee.

Obsession is good and bad. Good for all good reasons and bad for an only reason that it might cost you the wish to do it once again. This is what happened, as it seemed to me after reading this book, probably to Abhinav after the historic gold. I would not like to explain more on this as I do not feel it deserves many lines in this post.

Well, it’s always heartening to congratulate someone, and I once again congratulate him here. I wish him and other shooters all the very best in the years to come.

One more thing before closing on this, if you ever want to know what does an “obsession to win” mean, read “A Shot at History”.