A Shot At History: My Obsessive Journey to Olympic Gold

by Abhinav Bindra

Confidence was like some birthright here and they approached the Games without the cynicism whose fumes athletes are forced to inhale every day in sporting India. The Americans truly believe they are the best, and luckiest, country. They weren’t going to the Olympics carrying awe and content just to try, they were going to the Olympics to succeed, make history, be remembered. It was an adventure, a collective one, and I was awed by the importance they gave to team and the building of it. Great athletes littered the corridors. Hey, here’s Apollo Ohno, the legendary skater, there’s Matthew Emmons, the to-be Olympic hero, there goes a younger, yet-to-assert-himself Michael Phelps. Their vitality stunned me and more importantly, infected me through a sort of osmotic effect. Watch, copy, learn, imbibe. If you train with them, and beat them, the discovery is beautiful and immediate: I can be great, too. The Olympic centre was not ostentatious, but it was slick. From sports medicine to mental training, everything was catered for. This was an integrated approach to greatness. A cafeteria ran 24 hours, offering Oriental, Western, Italian cuisine, offering different food for different disciplines, catering to every weight category, from diminutive gymnast to hulking weightlifter. It was a thoughtfulness we were then yet to replicate in our camps, expecting diverse athletes to function on more or less the same diet of dal, chawal, egg, chicken.