Back-to-back shooting medals, but the system’s still flawed

True to the colour of the medal in Athens four years ago, the silver lining ought to have blazed against the dark cloud of India's routine Olympic disasters. But the only rippling effect of Rathore's silver medal was that the nation quadrupled its weight of expectations on the armyman for a Beijing gold. "It's ridiculous," says Suma Shirur, a 10m air-rifle Olympian from Mumbai. "All the country did, was to pile the pressure on Rathore — a medallist who's already achieved something for you and next time it'll be Abhinav Bindra carrying that burden."

Can a gold medal from Abhinav Bindra help pen a golden script, any different from four years ago? Once the euphoria settles and the accolades and cash announcements are over, the shooting fraternity is highly skeptical that the lot of the average shooter, the youngster who picks up the gun hoping to one day win a medal for India, will improve.

It's time that people who demand medals start sharing the responsibility that comes with it — the obligation to help build the next generation of marksmen.

Building champions

"Shooting is where your medals are coming from. Rathore gave that first thrust, and Bindra's gold has proven it beyond doubt," says Mumbai shooter Deepali Deshpande. But it's time to go stop waiting for individual initiative and then celebrating its success from a distance. It's time to getting down to aggressively building champions."

While Bindra's success was because of a combination of reasons, including in no small measure his father's personal and considerable investment in getting him everything he needed — even a personal 10m range — others might not be as fortunate. As the level of competition rises, and the sheer technical and coaching requirements to get results shoot up, the financially weaker simply get out-muscled, if not marginalised.

... contd.

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