Abhinav Bindra encourages young athletes to chart their own course, while Rahul Dravid encourages them to take it “ball by ball”
“CHART YOUR own course - I did it my way, you create your own path.” shared Abhinav Bindra opening the morning of the GoSports Foundation Conclave 2017, a confluence of over 60 young Olympians and Paralympians supported by GoSports Foundation. Building and sharing from personal experience, India’s only individual Olympic medalist shared that while there was a whole team behind a single Olympic medal, eventually the athlete always needed to remember to do it, her/her own way.
Discouraging public perception that, “an Olympics was only once in four years," Abhinav spoke for the whole room of athletes when he shared
“the Olympics is once in four years, but for us, it is every single day. Every day we get up and try and be the best we can be and only when we do work every day do we give ourselves the best chance”. While also saying that only hard work would get you past certain championship moments, admitting that he was a “Poor Athlete” but a “Hard Worker” and candidly shared, “ I did not have talent, I was a not a competitive person, I was not a fit person when I was young. I disliked competition. I used to be very nervous and I did not possess any talent, my only talent, was that I worked hard. And eventually I realised that Hard Work is a talent as well. I kept working hard and I kept working hard on everything I was doing.”
Given the first open forum that Abhinav was sharing with a newer generation of Olympians, Abhinav also answered a very burning question, how do you deal with pressure? and Abhinav was glad to bust a few myths, the first being that an athlete claiming enjoyment at a competitive event, was just an athlete running away from Pressure, because Pressure was part of every athletes journey band the best way to deal with it, was to accept it,
“accepting the pressure of competing so that you can use your mind and energy on other things is the first step and that pressure is very important” continuing, “When you start to accept Pressure and use it in a positive way, it helps you perform better because it gives you that little bit of edge to do the best for yourself.
HIs thoughts were echoed by GoSports Foundation fellow advisory board member, Rahul Dravid, who shared, that when he felt pressure, he took it “ball-by-ball”. Pausing, re-grouping his thoughts for that moment and then going for the next ball and encouraged all athletes, to be there, be present and then deal with the Pressure that they were in.
Through a whole morning of candid conversations with athletes, Abhinav and Rahul concluded deafeningly, and agreed that every athlete had to be present, with Abhinav summing it up sharing,
“Something will come up at the Olympic Games that you did not expect. and you need to evaluate your situation, learn how to deal with it and move on and get on with what you were supposed to be doing.”
Get the latest in the world of Sports, Teams, and Players! Free Delivery to your Inbox.
