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| Main Akayla hoon: Manavjit Singh Sandhu (above) stands alone in one corner of the sports village as gold medallist Abhinav Bindra (below) is flocked by journalists and officials at Beijing yesterday. Pics/Ashwin Ferro |
It made for a poor sight to see world champion trap shooter Manavjit Singh Sandhu standing alone and away from the public eye outside the Athletes' Village yesterday even as the 50-odd mediamen and Indian Olympic Association officials hounded India's first Olympic gold medal winner, 10m air rifle ace Abhinav Bindra.
Just 24 hours earlier Manavjit was hot property. The media, officials and even some of his Indian shooting teammates were all praise for the 32-year-old Punjab marksman, who looked good after training under Italian coach Marcelo Dradi and came into the Beijing Games claiming he was 'very confident and even ready to shed blood for the country.'
Abysmal
Touted as one of India's biggest medal hopes in the Beijing Games, Manavjit failed to even qualify for the final in his pet trap shooting event. He managed an abysmal 116 out of 125 and finished 12th at the end of the five-round qualifying sessions spread over two days at the Beijing Shooting Range.
The Punjab sharpshooter praised his teammate's effort yesterday.
"What Abhinav's achievement will do to Indian shooting is phenomenal. I'm very happy for him and he deserves every bit of his success because he has worked very hard for it," Manavjit said.
As for his own performance, he said: "People should realise that shooting has a lot to do with luck too.
"Despite all your skill and composure, you also need a lot of good fortune which Abhinav enjoyed today.
Unfortunately, I didn't."
Terror threat at Athletes' Village?
The otherwise peaceful Athletes' Village was abuzz with activity last evening as the Indian Olympic Association called for a hurried press conference on the occasion of the country winning its first-ever individual gold medal thanks to 10m air rifle shooter Abhinav Bindra.
The security guards at the entrance of the athletes' temporary residence were taken aback at the sight of about 50-60 odd Indian scribes and IOA officials jostling for space as Olympic champ Bindra emerged. One of the Beijing Olympic Games Organising Committee (BOGOC) officials there said they nearly mistook it for a possible terror threat. "Only yesterday we read in the newspaper about terrorists threatening to damage our Games and BOGOC has been on high alert since. This chaos here only made matters worse," the official said.
Luckily, Bindra didn't come out armed!
