The Quietest Gold

The shooting hall in Beijing was almost silent. Eight people stood in a row, each holding a heavy rifle, each staring at a tiny target ten metres away. The centre of that target, the part worth the most points, is a dot about half a millimetre across, smaller than the full stop at the end of this sentence.

It was 11 August 2008, the final of the men's 10-metre air rifle. One of the eight was a twenty-five-year-old from India named Abhinav Bindra. There was one shot left.

A range at home

Abhinav was born in 1982 in Dehradun and grew up in Punjab. His family was comfortable, and his parents supported him in whatever he took up. As a boy he was not especially sporty. But in his early teens, he became fascinated by shooting.

His father, Apjit Bindra, did something unusual. He had a shooting range built at the family home, so that his son could practise every day. Abhinav did, for hours. He was a quiet, serious boy who liked doing one thing again and again until it was perfect.

He improved fast. At the Sydney Olympics in 2000 he was just seventeen, the youngest member of India's team. He did not reach the final, but he had seen the Olympics from the inside.

The sport of stillness

Air-rifle shooting looks simple from the outside. You stand, you aim, you pull the trigger. But at the highest level, almost every shooter hits the middle. What separates them is tiny: a heartbeat at the wrong moment, a slightly tense shoulder, a thought that wanders.

So the real contest is with yourself. Abhinav trained his body to hold the rifle as still as a statue. He trained his breathing and his heartbeat. He worked with coaches and sports scientists, in India and in Germany, and spent long months abroad, away from his family, chasing small improvements.

At the 2004 Olympics in Athens, he reached the final but finished seventh. He was crushed. He had done everything he could think of, and it had not been enough.

Then his back began to hurt. For a time, the injury was so bad that he could not hold his rifle properly at all. Many people wondered whether he would ever return to the top.

He did. In 2006, at the World Championships in Zagreb, he won the 10-metre air rifle. No Indian had ever been world champion in shooting before.

Beijing

In the qualifying round in Beijing, each shooter fired sixty shots. Abhinav finished fourth, which put him in the final, but behind three others.

In the final, each shooter fires ten more shots, one at a time, and each one is scored in tenths of a point. Shot by shot, Abhinav crept up. He stayed calm while others wavered. By the time the last shot came, he was level at the top with Henri Häkkinen of Finland.

The hall went quiet again. Abhinav raised the rifle and settled into his stance. He breathed out slowly. Then he fired.

The score flashed up: 10.8, very close to the best possible. Häkkinen's last shot was not as good. Abhinav Bindra had won the Olympic gold medal.

A quiet champion

He did not leap or shout. Television showed a young man who smiled a little, shook hands and lowered his rifle. Later, in his autobiography, he described feeling strangely empty after that moment, as if he did not quite know what to do with himself now that the long chase was over.

At home, India erupted with joy. India's hockey teams had won Olympic gold medals many times, but those were team medals. In all the years India had been going to the Olympic Games, no Indian had ever won an individual gold. Now one had.

The anthem of India played in the hall in Beijing, and the flag rose. Millions of people at home, who had never thought much about shooting, watched it again and again.

After the gold

Abhinav Bindra went on competing for eight more years. At the Rio Olympics in 2016, his last Games, he came fourth, missing a medal by the narrowest of margins. Soon afterwards he retired.

Since then he has worked to help young athletes in India, through sports science, coaching and better care for their health and minds. He has also served on committees of the International Olympic Committee, speaking up for athletes around the world.

His gold in Beijing did not come with speed or strength. It came from years of standing still, breathing slowly, and making one small, careful movement as well as a person can make it.

Want to read more?

Abhinav Bindra tells his own story, honestly and with humour, in A Shot at History, written with the sports writer Rohit Brijnath. His results are listed on Olympics.com, the official site of the International Olympic Committee.