When Abhinav Bindra takes the range at the Royal Artillery Barracks today, he will be keenly followed by a 71-member strong Indian media contingent and millions of fans back at home.
Never a country expected so much from one single athlete who shot India to glory four years ago in Beijing, winning their first ever individual gold medal in 10-meter air rifle shooting.
This was not just the first individual success for India but also their first gold in 28 years, since the men’s field hockey team won the gold in the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
He was the youngest shooter to compete at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and also became the youngest person ever to represent India at an Olympic.
After winning India’s first individual gold medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, he decided to retire from shooting, but after 18 months away and some intense meditation, he decided to return.
The hype surrounding him slightly declined after he failed to qualify for even the final round in Guangzhou Asian Games in 2010, though it is thought that he had been made a victim of a scoring error with a score of nine incorrectly marked as a seven.
Bindra regained the confidence of his fans by winning a gold medal in this year’s Asian Shooting Championship in Doha and he is now carrying India’s best hope for a second individual gold medal.
The emergence of new shooters, however, made it difficult for him to retain his Olympic gold medal and irrespective of hypes about him in India he will not start as favourites.
The honour will go with Italy’s Campriani, the current world number one in air rifle shooting, who won two medals in the International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup this year.
Campriani is now aiming to become the first ever medallist for Italy in this event at the Olympic Games.
Illia Charheika, runner-up in this event at the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games, is now among the top 10 at senior level, picking up silver in Munich and bronze in London, at the ISSF world cup series this year.
China’s star shooter, Zhu Qinan may also make a podium finish again having won gold at Athens 2004.
This was the event, which once gave Bangladesh a great hope with Asif Hossain Khan winning a Commonwealth Games gold medal at Manchester in 2002 beating none other than Bindra in an intense tie-breaker.
While Bindra is now competing in his fourth Olympics, starting from Sydney at the age of 15, the youngest ever by an Indian, Asif has gone into wilderness.
The BKSP boy, Asif, was never in a limelight since carrying Bangladesh’s flag in the opening ceremony in Beijing, where his one-time rival Bindra made history.
-With New Age input
