While the nation was speculating whether India would at least make a bronze at the Beijing Olympics, he was the one who with his astounding performance has made a dream come true by clinching Gold in 10m Air rifle event. Now the scenario has left Abinav so shy with all the prize amounts and appreciation hailed towards him. It’s all so natural coz he has helped the country gain its first individual gold medal. So is the reason for this bachelor being hailed and acclaimed for he has realized India’s golden dream hasn’t he?
But do u know he is the son of a millionaire industrialist and his family had spent a fortune on his training with even an indoor shooting range in his backyard at their Chandigarh farm-house that is fully air-conditioned and also he’s been provided with special training. He has been practicing for about 12-14 hours everyday there. He wasn’t dependent on sponsors or govt-aid and that’s the main reason for his success story. He isn’t and wasn’t dependent! He did his schooling at the St. Stephens School in chandigarh where he also gained training for shooting also. He was the youngest Indian sportsperson at the Olympics in 2000. But he gained only the 11th position then with 590 points. In the 2002 Common Wealth Games he gained silver. In the 2004 Olympics he gained 97.6 points at the final round and just got the 7th position. He was the only person to obtain less than 100 points at the final round. At 2006 Common Wealth Games he had gained bronze.
With a tally of 104.5 points at the final Abhinav has bagged gold this time at Beijing.
His final shot was brilliant and gained him the gold. It was from that moment all the greetings and celebration started in their farm-house in Chandigarh. Greetings from friends, family, sportspersons, known and unknown made his parents over-whelm with joy. Within an hour his father, A.S. Bindra had 600 SMS greetings it seems. From then lot of prize amount announcements from his state and many other organizations started pouring in. No harm in crediting Abhinav’s victory this way but then finance is no problem for him. Abhinav is the CEO of Abhinav Futuristics. He s millionaire already! And that’s the reason he could gain training from some international trainer. At this moment when the whole country is celebrating Abhinav’s success story, we get to know a news that Khashaba Jadav, ( Wrestling, Men's Freestyle Bantamweight!) the Maharashtrian who gained the first Olympic medal for India in 1952 had died in poverty without any recognition.
Obviously Abhinav who has got the Arjuna award and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award has awarded this country with his ‘Olympic gold’ and has to be given all this accolade, respect and prize amounts. But celebrating and wallowing when somebody gains victory and then just not even recognizing them later has become and has been our fashion always. It is fine to celebrate but it is just as important to keep up all the backing even when they are not on top of the game. There are a lot of Abhinavs hidden in many rural areas of India. If we just find them out and help them we’d gain even more Olympic golds. And even our very own Abhinav desires the same!
Abhinav is here blogging...jus chk out !:)
http://abhinavbindra.blogspot.com/
