Abhinav Bindra Thread - 2008 Beijing Olympics Gold Medalist

[Orang]

http://abhinavbindra.blogspot.com/

There were hardly any comments there when I checked early today, and now its crazy!  Unfortunately, when you do a google search for Abhinav Bindra, his blog no longer appears on the first page.  All the hits are news item hits.

[PKBasu]

A long-overdue thread to celebrate the achievements of Abhinav Bindra, the first Indian to win an individual gold medal at the Olympics. His triumph in the 10m air rifle event at the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing brought joy to a sports-success-starved nation, and will remain etched in the memories of Indian sports-lovers for many decades to come.

As long ago as 2001-2002, Abhinav had some fairly spectacular years (winning one gold and one silver at the Commonwealth Games in 2002, after 6 titles in various international events in 2001, including a bronze in the World Cup where he broke the junior world record). He broke the world record in qualifying for the final at the Athens Olympics four years ago, and then became world champion in his event on July 24, 2006. But he then suffered a bad back injury that may have required surgery; but he decided instead to undergo some gruelling physiotherapy in Germany instead, in order to be ready for the Beijing Olympics. And how ready he was! He peaked when it mattered most -- in the final few shots of the Beijing Olympics, after finishing fourth in the preliminary rounds of shooting -- surging past his competition with nerves of steel, beating his Chinese opponent (the holder of the title from Athens) to second place with his final few shots.

It turns out that Abhinav's father is a very successful businessman, who came to Chandigarh as a refugee from Rawalpindi and went from rags to riches. But his mother's genes may help explain Abhinav's shooting exploits. She is the great-great-grand-daughter of Hari Singh Nalwa, the greatest of Maharaja Ranjit Singh's generals -- and the man who conquered Peshawar, Kashmir, Sialkot and Multan for Ranjit Singh's empire. Hari Singh Nalwa's maternal grandmother was the daughter of Sadashivrao Bhau, the commander of the Maratha forces in the Third Battle of Panipat (won by Ahmed Shah Abdali or Durrani, the founder of the dynasty to which Afghanistan's last king Zaheer Shah belonged).

Long may Abhinav Bindra continue to give us joy with further exploits with his rifle-shooting.

[usaindian]

Laxmi Mittal to present Rs 1.5 cr to Bindra


http://mittalchampionstrust.com/news/news25.html
i think mittal trust should pick the next batch of sports persons,they seems to have good eye for talent

[puneets]

Great news. Mittal is doing heck of a job.
Akhil Kumar too was supported by the Mittal fund.

[gbelday]

Great news!  Saina is supported by the Mittals too, I think.

[suresh]

The Mittal trust chose people who, in their opinion, had a chance of contending for a medal in the Olympics. Next. they provided all the financial support these players needed towards their training. This method has already fetched a gold medal. Of course, not all their players have done well Beijing -- this is to be expected. The interesting question is whether this can be replicated by a government organisation? I doubt it given the political/regional machinations that are the norm in such organisations. There is no second-guessing the choices made by the Mittal Trust but there will be several if a govt. organisation does the same thing. I think the most commendable thing about the Mittal trust is that they are being patient and not looking for quick results. I am sure that their athletes will do much better in the London Olympics.  PT Usha was complaining that the academy has trouble with sponsors who want quick results. I just hope that some of her athletes get supported by the Mittal Trust in the future.

Suresh

[jayakris]

Yeah, Mittal Champions Trust so far has got involved only in Archery, Boxing, Badminton, Shooting, Squash and Swimming.  They have not got into athletics yet, as far as I know.

Tintu Luka, the most promising junior girl fro the Usha school (and Gagan Narang) are suppored till 2012 by Olympic Gold Quest, a similar effort as Mittal champions trust, run by Geet Sethi and Prakash Padukone with different sponsors.  I don't know if any other athlete is in such programs.

I think Manavjit and Ronjan Sodhi were the main guys under Mittal trust, and Bindra didn't need a whole lot of support from them.  Unfortunately Ronjan could not make it in, and we possbly lost a medal right there.

Jay

[prasen9]

If you are wondering where our Olympic Gold medalist is, here is some news:
http://sports.rediff.com/report/2010/ja ... ooting.htm Messy!

[jayakris]

Bindra repeated his performance, at Hague. Good to see that!
Bindra equals Olympic score again, bags gold
Jay

[prasen9]

I hope the idiots change their policy of asking people like Bindra to take part in the national trials or whatever. The team should be chosen on the basis of the last several months' international performance.

[ssp]

Here's an interesting article:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/spor ... 724347.cms

I'd be very happy if we win 20 medals by 2020.

Some crazy quotes though:

It's not a pipedream. If small countries like Germany and Britain can win Olympic medals...

Germany is a small country then..

Bindra found support from Geet Sethi who said the curve of medals was rising ever since Leander Paes brought bronze in 1996 at Atlanta. "Based on this curve one can easily hope for 20 medals."

We won 1 bronze in 1996, same in 2000, 1 silver in 2004 & 1 gold & 2 bronzes in 2008. Hardly a brilliant improvement in 12 years.

[arjun2761]

Actually, I think the performance in 2008 was a significant improvement. We won a gold medal and multiple medals after a long time.

I think in 2012, we will do well to consolidate that result -- win 3-5 medals with at least 1 gold. Right now, the best prospects for mutiple medals are in boxing and shooting where our performers are continuing to be world class and showing consistent results. Moreover, we have seniors backed by a promising junior rising set. Archery, wrestling, womens badminton, tennis doubles etc. may throw up another medal or two.

Getting to 20 medals in in 2020 is cetainly achievable but will require focused planning and execution to get there. We will have to somehow replicate our shooting and boxing programs (and archery as well) in a couple of more medal sports before double digit medals will be possible. What are the candidates? Perhaps wrestling, badminton, Table Tennis, Weight lifting and some of the team sports like Hockey and Volleyball will have to join the party. We should also focus on some of the womens events with low international participation (boxing, wrestling, and weightlifting etc.) where the number of serious competitors is low so that a focused effort is more likely to yield results (as it is a lot easier to be top 3 in a sport with 50 serious participants rather than one which has 50,000 serious participants).

[jayakris]

What Bindra said is not that outlandish or anything. Consider this. Consider the total points (1 for bronze, 2 for silver, 3 for gold) that we got in the last 4 Olympics - 1, 1, 2 and 4 .. Now consider a series close to that .. 1, 1.28, 1.98, 3.73 .. That is a simple series where the delta increase from one to the next is 2.5 times (i.e., 0.28, 0.70, 1.75) ... If that is the best fit to our point increase and the curve holds up for the next 3 Olympics, we will see 1, 1.28, 1.98, 3.73, 8.11, 19.05, 46.39 as our medal points...

OK, now how many medals do these points mean? .. As the average medals per points is (1+2+3)/2 = 0.5, the medals will be half of the points ..

That means we should get 4 medals next Olympics, 9 or 10 in 2016 and 23 medals in 2020... Well, may be the curve flattens a bit and we will only get 15 to 20 medals in 2020.. But not far from Bindra's bold prediction. Ta Da !!!!

Jay

[vidhyashankar]

We should also focus on some of the womens events with low international participation (boxing, wrestling, and weightlifting etc.) where the number of serious competitors is low so that a focused effort is more likely to yield results (as it is a lot easier to be top 3 in a sport with 50 serious participants rather than one which has 50,000 serious participants).

What about women's Boxing?M.C.Marykom?What are her chances and what will be the competition like?

[arjun2761]

Don't know much about women's boxing except that Marykom has been a world champion on multiple ocassions so she should be a medal hope in 2012. The only catch is that the number of categories for women's boxing is reduced to a few weight classes so hopefully she is able to win in her new expanded weight class.

Consider the total points (1 for bronze, 2 for silver, 3 for gold) that we got in the last 4 Olympics - 1, 1, 2 and 4

BTW, one minor edit to Jay's point progression -- we went 1, 1, 2, 5 (1 gold and 2 bronzes). That is why I think our performance in Beijing was a pretty significant improvement and was by far our best since our 4 point performance in 1952.