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Shooting
Abhinav eyes big targets
By Kamesh Srinivasan
NEW DELHI, DEC. 31. Air rifle ace Abhinav Bindra has decided to leave the crumbs to the lesser lights and strike hard when it counts, in 2002.
Having won the World Cup bronze with a world junior record in Germany, Abhinav has opted to skip the junior events in the emerging season during the European circuit beginning in Luxembourg shortly.
Of course, the build-up to the year gone-by was during the European circuit when Abhinav won medals by the dozen in preparing for the big league. He also owes a lot of credit to the women's world record holder Gaby Buehlmann for the valuable hours of training.
However, the 19-year-old Chandigarh lad has decided to demand more from himself to face the intense competition from the best in the business. That is why he has recently hired the German coach Dr. Uwe Riesterer, who may be with Abhinav for the most part of a season that offers such a rich fare.
In a season in which there are the World Cups in Sydney, Shanghai, Atlanta, Milan in the run-up to the World Championship in Lahti, Finland, not to forget the Commonwealth and the Asian Games, it will not serve any purpose fooling around with the juniors.
In fact, Abhinav is likely to go slow during the build-up phase in Europe in Luxembourg, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands in a bid to conserve his energy for the more serious challenges ahead.
The quota place for the Olympics has to be won and Abhinav is also very keen to make a mark in the World Championship. In collaboration with Dr. Riesterer, Abhinav has chalked a strategy to strike blows when it matters.
It is indeed a judicious ploy to go for the big targets, rather than be content winning medals at the junior level with totals of 592 or so.
In the bargain, he may be forced to shoot better than his best total of 597, and bring home the more precious medals.
``This year has been very good, in terms of medals, record and scores. I will compete with the elite from now on to gain match confidence and get hungry to shoot higher scores. I have learnt a lot about shooting this year, technically, but still have got loads to learn'', says Abhinav, on a short vacation at home.
There are going to be 12 matches in all in four weeks. Shooting so many matches in the first 40 days of a packed season may not be a good idea, but Abhinav has decided to get himself tuned technically, physically and mentally.
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