There wasn’t too much positivity for India leading into the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The shadow of the dominant Indian hockey teams of the past loomed large on the contingent with the men’s team failing to qualify for the Olympics. It meant that there was no Indian hockey team at the Olympics for the first time since 1928. The Indian weightlifting contingent was obliterated by doping bans.
Just two days into the Games though, everything changed and that is thanks to a streak of gold suddenly emerging and the Indian national anthem being played at the Beijing Shooting Range Hall. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, the Athens 2004 bronze medallist, failed to qualify for the final of the men’s trap on August 9 but on August 11, Abhinav Bindra won the men’s 10m air rifle title and thus made a host of firsts for India.
Not an accidental gold medal
The gold was no accident, it was something that Bindra meticulously prepared for. Bindra had reached the finals at the 2004 Olympics but finished seventh. In preparation for Beijing, Bindra spent a considerable amount of time in Dortmund, Germany, polishing his shooting skills under coaches Heinz Reinkemeier and Gabriele Buhlmann. He then went to Munich to meet coach Uwe Riesterer to try and overcome his fears of performing at the big stage.
His rehearsals covered everything from how he would walk to the arena in ankle-high boots to his stance, even having a ‘mock finals’ with Buhlmann making announcements just like at a shooting event. A week before the Games, he underwent commando training. “I arrived in Beijing without fear. Faith was always an issue with me, but this time, I had taken the leap I needed to find faith,” said Bindra in his autobiography A Shot at History.
Bindra sailed through the qualification round with a score of 596, even as compatriot and future bronze medallist Gagan Narang bowed out with a score of 595. Before the finals though, Bindra had some trouble during sighting time, the five-minute window where the shooters get to shoot at the target to check the rifle. His gun sight was off kilter and that led to him having to make some frantic changes.
When the event started though, Bindra was the picture of calmness. He shot 10s and above throughout the finals and stayed significantly ahead of most competitors. Finland’s Henri Häkkinen was level with Bindra till the final shot but fell short at the crucial time and scored 9.7 of his final shot. The Indian, meanwhile, shot a near-perfect 10.8. The result caused Hakkinen to slip to bronze medal with China’s Zhu Qinan taking silver. Bindra finished with a total score of 700.5 and his calmness broke after his last shot as he let out a roar.
“Relief flooded my brain,” Bindra would later say. “It’s the first emotion that releases as four years of investment have been validated. Then exhaustion settles in the bones, satisfaction embraces you and for a second even ecstasy comes. Those 10 shots, they were magical. Stability, timing, execution, they were the best shots of my life… I knew: I could not shoot better.”
Bindra would go on to represent India at the 2012 London Olympics and was the country’s flagbearer at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. He could never get back into medal contention in both Games but the legacy of his gold was a new standard of success being set for Indians at the Olympics. He kept urging Indian athletes to give him company in the club and at the Tokyo Olympics, javelin star Neeraj Chopra did that with aplomb, becoming independent India’s first-ever gold medallist in athletics.