Can you hit this target from 10m?

Take a look at that target. That's how big it actually is. Now go and prop this newspaper up against a wall and take about 15 steps away from it. In adult steps, that is approximately 10 metres. Now look at that target.

This is what Abhinav Bindra sees, every time he looks through his gun in a 10m air rifle event.

There are no telescopic sights. Like you and me, India's only individual Olympic gold medallist sees a black dot, a blur.

Bindra has to hit the centre of that target - barely bigger than a 50 cent coin - every time. And to win a medal in the Olympics, he has to hit that tiny dot in the centre or get really close to it every single time. In his sport, you are no good if you don't. Hit more than four shots outside the 10-point innermost circle in a 60-shot competition and you are a sure failure.

Which is why shooting is the cruelest of sports. There is no room for error. You have to hit the bull's eye. Every time.

Bindra gave a glimpse of how difficult what he does is at the recent Singapore launch of his autobiography A Shot At History: My Obsessive Journey To Olympic Gold, co-authored by Straits Times columnist Rohit Brijnath.

It's harder to appreciate what Bindra does, for shooting doesn't present as much a spectacle as some other sports like cricket or football which are tailor-made for drama.

But then greatness is also hard work. It's in the details. In doing the little things that come together to make history. It's in every stroke, perfected over decades, of a faultless Sachin Tendulkar century. In the frantic resolve, and defiance of Rafael Nadal.

In Bindra's case, it's in the manic meticulousness with which he approaches his sport.

In shooting fastidiousness is a requirement, not really a choice. Which is why Bindra talks of movement in millimetres and centimetres, of slowing down heart rate before taking a shot, of readjusting muscle tension, of finding absolute stillness and balance.

He told an enthralled audience at the launch: "I am a labourer. I work hard. Details are important. I try everything if I feel it will help improve my aim and stay focused."

Like hypnotherapy, which is helping him cope with the distractions that came after Lasik eye surgery that improved his eye sight... and suddenly gave him peripheral vision. Before the Beijing Olympics of 2008, Bindra couldn't see anything outside the central gaze. A reason why he failed to make eye contact with people and was labelled arrogant. "The problem was I couldn't see them," he said.

He had the surgery after Beijing, and could see more people than before. It became a distraction when shooting. "That was a new challenge. So through hypnosis, I associate people with colours. Now I just see colours," he said.

He talks of pressure, of anxiety as a given. How it plagues the best of athletes. And how he learnt to embrace it. "I accept those feelings and stay with those feelings. The moment you try to get away from those feelings, you mess up. So you have to actually accept that fear and anxiety, live with it through the duration of a competition and your career," he said.

Before Bindra heads for the London Olympics this July, he says he wants to test himself in a situation he has never been before. So he is going to skydive, from 30,000 feet. "It's to test and learn how I can remain calm in a state of complete chaos. Because when you are falling from 30,000 feet, I am sure there'll be certain feelings that will show up. I just want to see whether I can counter them," he said.

In his autobiography, he talks of many such limits he tested, stretched in that quest for gold.

It's inspiring, his tale. But being Abhinav Bindra isn't easy. It involves hard work you can't imagine, suffering, pain, precision which all add up to greatness.