Abhinav Bindra shoots out at the India International Sports Summit

Suited and booted, with a file holder in his hand, Abhinav Bindra could have passed off as one of the hundred or so corporate delegates at the India International Sports Summit. He displayed the similar dead-pan expression that was on show seconds after he bagged the gold at the Beijing Olympics.

Bindra sprung to life when he donned the role of the keynote speaker on the topic: Winning 20 Gold Medals in 2020.
India’s lone Olympic gold medallist spoke with a burning passion, was sharp, displayed a clinical thought process and spoke his mind.

“We have been too content for too long. When we don’t excel at the highest level we fall back on our lofty ideals. Now the time has come to play to win at all costs,” he said.

Bindra juxtaposed Martina Navratilova’s lines to further highlight the underlying lack of killer instinct among the sporting community in the country. “Whoever said ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,’ probably lost.”

The sharpshooter wasn’t going to mince his words. “Our current group of elite athletes won’t fetch us any medals in 2020. We don’t have a plan for the next two years,” Bindra added, wondering whether there was any vision beyond this year’s Commonwealth Games to be held in New Delhi in October.

Bindra said his 10-metre air rifle gold at the Beijing Olympics was the culmination of nearly two decades of hard work, training and sacrifice.

“Athletes and champions cannot be groomed overnight. We must go and look for talent and make investments. We need to talent scout from the sub-junior age-group. The level of domestic competition also needs to be improved else our athletes will be found out of depth at the international level,” Bindra said.

The ace shooter also believes that no emotion or sentiment should be attached and favouritism shouldn’t come to the fore when teams are picked to represent the country at the junior or senior levels.

“There should be no room for non-performers. Sports associations and federations should rid themselves of regional biases and sycophancy.”

Eight-time world billiards champion Geet Sethi, who is also a driving force behind the Olympic Gold Quest, said: “India has consolidated its position. Now it the time to take the graph higher. In 1996 Leander Paes won the bronze in tennis and Karnam Malleshwari won a bronze in weightlifting in 2000.

“We did better when shooter Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore won silver in 2004.

“We went a step ahead with Bindra’s gold and the two bronze medals from Vijender Singh (boxing) and Sushil Kumar (wrestling) at Beijing. “Winning 20 gold medals in 2020 is not a pipedream if we can provide world-class infrastructure, training and sustained support to our best athletes.”

Talking on the sidelines of the summit, Bindra, when asked what continues to motivate him, said, “Olympic gold is an ultimate dream but now I have to challenge new limits. But even if I don’t do well now, I’ll die as a gold medallist.”

On India’s chances in shooting at the CWG, Bindra said, “we have done really well in the past at the CWG. I see no reason why we can’t win medals again this year. I am sure we will win more than one medal in the next Olympics in shooting alone.”

Bindra also revealed that the recent shooting selection controversy, which first saw him being excluded from the core group of the CWG, was an incentive to excel.

“It was a motivational factor for me to do well. I had in mind that I have to perform to prove them wrong. But I was never really concerned about it. Luckily I’ve been shooting well and I tried to use that criticism positively.”