Abhinav Bindra

I have had a decent career.

I plan to establish my own academy.

My success has given confidence to many others.

Sport can never be scripted. What I had in my control was to be the best that I could be every single shot.

I remember watching the 1992 Barcelona Games on TV, and I watched Limba Ram shoot. That was my first exposure to the Olympic Games.

Reflecting back on my career, I was not a talented athlete at all. I had no competitiveness naturally, and was full of anxiety and panic all the time - something that's certainly not needed for shooting.

When I started out as a 12-13 year old, it was a stupid idea. I remember when I went to try to get coached by Heinz Reinkemeier and my coach Gaby, when I went and met them, India was nowhere in shooting. They said, 'you want to win a gold at the Olympics? Why don't you ride an elephant back home?'

If I'm bored at home, I'll probably just log on to ESPN.com.

No, I firmly believe in giving my place to another person. We have a lot of talent back home. I don't want to hang on for just the sake of hanging on.

We shouldn't be fixated to one sport. The Olympics come once in four years, and every athlete works very hard towards that. It's so special in one's career.

Sport is not maths.

I am happy with the way I shot and ended my career.

It has been a fantastic journey. I have gone to five Games, broke the Olympics record in 2004 in Athens and won a gold medal as well in Beijing. I have had a good run at the Olympics.

I was always humorous by nature but, maybe, no one noticed it. Or, maybe, I looked just too intense or serious to others.

I do believe the aura of the Olympics is the greatest platform for sport and when one achieves success there it is sure to fire up the imagination of the youth.

I only wish the sport of shooting was more reachable and there were training centers all over the country where youngsters could go and try shooting.

Sports federations must try to be professional in trying to market their sport.

Sportspersons at the grassroots must get world class exposure in terms of coaches, facilities, physical trainers and mental trainers so that a strong foundation is laid at the base. That's the key to success.

It happens too frequently that after a couple of poor performances, athletes are dumped. That's unfair as Olympic glory is a long path.

Incorporating science, technology, engineering, analytics and medicine to athletes' training and development not just at elite level but basing it right at the grassroots level is important.

I believe that it is important, wherever possible, to lend a voice to help those in trying times.

When you go to a shooting competition, you don't know what medal you're going to finish with.

I am always available to share my experiences. I am happy to talk to people in Indian sports administration, maybe teach them a few things, and eventually help out an athlete. That would make me happiest.

I cannot shoot for 40-50 hours a week.

Shooting is an amateur sport, but everybody does it professionally.

To organize an Olympic Games is probably the most complex thing on the planet because it has so many moving parts.

I think the real breakthrough will come when sport becomes a social activity, when a family chose sport over a movie on a Sunday afternoon and go and involve themselves in the sporting activity.

My performance at Rio gave me closure. I did my best and could not have done any more.

My talent lies in my hard work.

10,000 athletes go and compete at an Olympic Games, only 300 go back with a gold medal, the number is very, very less.

It takes about eight years to develop as an Olympic athlete, very few athletes actually who go there win medal in their first Games.

The Commonwealth Games is an important benchmark in the whole career path of an athlete.

I went to five Olympic Games and my favorite is Sydney.

I was just trying to be immersed in my technique and I was actually immersed in it. That is the difference between really performing well and not performing well at the highest level.

I don't know what stops Indian athletes from expressing their thoughts freely, maybe it is the fear of repercussions.

In some sports, you have a way to come back through repechage but in the game of life, there is no such thing.

Sport, like life, hardly gives you second chances, certainly not in a pandemic era.

Unfortunately, people not just in India but globally seem to be lacking empathy. Not just during the pandemic, but in other times too.

But post my victory in Beijing, I actually wanted to quit sport and move on to something else in life.

Shooting of course has certain challenges, especially in terms of safety aspects to be sorted and venues are far away from the scene of action.

Every sport has to set itself up for long-term growth and unless you engage with a wider audience and have numbers coming into your sport globally, you're not quite there.

India has a large number of those who take up the sport of shooting. But it's not enough to be content with the hotspots.

The Olympic movement has made a conscious attempt to make sports and disciplines urban in nature.

It is my job to be composed.

I am done; I have announced my retirement, so there is no reconsideration. I am not going to shoot again.

I really tried to put my best foot forward all these years.

One must understand that shooting is a very individual sport and see what sort of coaching possibilities exist in the country and what their standards are. One of the issues that has been faced earlier by shooting athletes is that we have one odd national coach for whom it's impossible to give that sort of attention to say, a group of 30.

You can't really rely on a couple of athletes to deliver you medals in five consecutive Olympic Games. It's absolutely unrealistic. You have to have a system in place where you continue to increase the depth of the sport which pushes performance levels to higher standards.

Performance in any sport can never be broken down into black and white. There's a lot of grey in the nature of sport.

My mother is a trained psychologist.