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‘You send athletes who don't have a good training and ask why did not you get gold’
Shooter Abhinav Bindra's technical trainer Heinz Reinkemeier denounced Indian media's 'obsession' for Olympic medal and emphasised that an effort can be categorised as ‘good performance’ even without a medal.
Bindra finished fourth in the 10m Air Rifle event following defeat in shoot-off.
"Let me be very clear. This is a problem of the media. They just come and want gold. They are not interested in the sport or the individuals. They just want gold, gold, gold," the German told reporters after Bindra bid a final goodbye to the shooting range with a fourth place finish.
The only individual Olympic gold medalist missed out on a second medal but Reinkemeier said they are happy with the performance.
"Maybe this is something only in India. You send athletes who don't have a good training facility of a Europe or maybe China and you keep on asking why did not you get gold. Try to understand that a good performance is valued on his own. For me this was a real good performance today."
Bindra was pipped by Ukraine's Serhiy Kulish by 0.5 points in the shootoff to finish fourth and the trainer said luck too did not go his way.
"An athlete is changing from year to year, so does the competition. We do little necessary adjustments. If we really compare today he is may be two or three 10s away from the medal. He had a bit more luck in Beijing.
"In Athens he was in a perfect form but had no luck. In shooting there are 20 boys at the same level. And if you repeat it 20 times you get 10 different winners. We were not the luckiest today. But we both are quite satisfied.
"We had to work hard. The results were really hard. When we came he was 29 in world ranking. Niccolo Campriani (gold medalist) was 28. We had to adjust something. We tried to make the final. That was very satisfying start," he said.