India's Abhinav Bindra wins Gold Medal

Agnel

Bindra's 'golden' gun was fiddled with before final

BEIJING: Abhinav Bindra's gun was tampered with before the final of 10m Air Rifle event which the ace marksman won to give India its first ever individual Olympic gold medal, top officials with the Indian contingent said on Wednesday.

The sightscreen fitted with the gun had been altered before the final and it was only because of his unflappable nature that Bindra went on to win the medal, Deputy Chef-the-Mission Baljit Singh Sethi, who is also the secretary general of the National Rifle Association of India, said.

"We did not know it but after the final, he (Bindra) told us that he found his gunsight altered. But he is a very cool boy and has lot of patience. Lesser mortals would have panicked but he maintained his cool and went on to win the gold," Sethi said.

Bindra had earlier told a newspaper that between the qualifying and final sessions, he went to the rest room and his German coach Gabriela Buehlmann also went out for a smoke and that was probably the time when the unattended gun was fiddled with.

Sethi, meanwhile, saw no point in starting the blame game and said, "no complaint has been filed about the incident.

"I don't think that helps. Actually, you cannot blame anyone for it's your duty to take care of your gun. He was the only Indian to qualify, so there were shooters only from other countries in that room."

Asked if the Indian contingent management made a complaint about the incident, Sethi said, "No, because it was his duty to attend the gun. You cannot blame anyone for that."

Shooting coach TS Dhillon said this was not the first time that such things happened.

"It happened earlier also. In Abhinav's case, during the sighter series, he was suddenly scoring as low as 4.2 before gradually scores picked up. It took him 40 clicks to reach the centrestage. And he had just three minutes.

"It's another matter that he went on to defy the setback and win the gold, it only goes on to prove how good a shooter he is," Dhillon said.

Lamers

India Challenge-India@Beijing-Beijing 2008 Olympics - The Times Of India

harrydickens

Many were waiting to see an ecstatic, over-the-moon Abhinav excited about having won an Olympic gold medal, talking heroically about the odds and how he had beaten them, talking about India and the bright future of the country.
But here is a guy who doesn't seem to be so damn excited about it, who feels he has done no special thing. To me, he is a 'true' achiever in every sense.
A true achiever never achieves for the sake of achievement itself, but for the pleasure he derives in doing the thing. For a true achiever, hard work is never hard. He wants to do it and loves to do it. Abhinav is not a guy who kept on dreaming about an Olympic gold. He simply loved shooting, enjoyed shooting and loved taking part in the Olympics which is the highest sporting event in the world.(Read his posts before he got the medal). I am sure it wouldn't have even mattered to him even if he had finished without a medal. He would have simply trained harder, worked to correct his flaws.
I loved him because he didn't portray himself as heroic, as being bedazzled about the whole thing, which our beloved cricketers show during their rare wins. Any man can achieve, if he believes in himself, if he stands by himself and his dreams. There is nothing so great about it.