Emptiness at the summit: Abhinav

‘A feeling of emptiness’ was how marksman Abhinav Bindra, who struck India's first-ever individual Olympic gold medal in Beijing, on Thursday, described his first emotion after scaling the summit.

‘A feeling of emptiness’ was how marksman Abhinav Bindra, who struck India’s first-ever individual Olympic gold medal in Beijing, on Thursday, described his first emotion after scaling the summit.

“It was a sort of emptiness. You climb the mountain and there is nothing at the top,” he said in an uncharacteristically philosophical answer to a question from a reporter in New Delhi.

“When you work so hard to achieve something and you get it at the end, there is a feeling of emptiness. But then life goes on,” he added.

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Bindra said that after the heartbreak of going without a medal in the Athens Olympics in 2004 and the subsequent back injury it felt like a bigger achievement than just winning a gold medal.

“I was upset after the Athens and then I had this back injury. It took a lot of courage and determination for me. So its a bigger achievement for me than just winning a gold medal,” he said.

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