If split-second accuracy is a champion shooter's hallmark, Abhinav Bindra's historic gold medal at the Beijing Olympics could not have been timed better.
Bindra's victory in the men's 10m air rifle event on Monday, which gave India its first-ever individual Olympic gold, came on a day when nothing else went right in the sporting world for the country.
India's cricket superstars crashed to a Test series defeat in Sri Lanka, tennis beauty Sania Mirza pulled out of the Olympics with a wrist injury and weightlifter Monika Devi stayed home due to official apathy.
India Abhinav Bindra of India wins the gold medal for the Men's 10m Air Rifle competition at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on August 11, 2008 at the Beijing Shooting Hall. Abhinav Bindra won India's first ever individual Olympic gold medal when he claimed the men's 10m Air Rifle shooting title here on Monday. [Agencies] |
Bindra, a 25-year-old from a wealthy business family in Chandigarh, finally ended the debate that generates every four years before the Olympics on why a nation of one billion can't win a gold medal.
On Tuesday, the nation of a billion was celebrating and they were not Chinese.
Bindra's feat is arguably India's finest sporting achievement, a fact conceded by the country's lone cricket World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev.
"This is much, much bigger than the World Cup," Dev told AFP. "I hope it will do as much for Olympic sports as ours in 1983 did for cricket.
"It is not easy for an Indian to win an Olympic medal, let alone a gold, because there is no sporting culture in our country. I hope this will make sports a way of life in India."
Therein lies the rub. It is only recently that private funding began pouring in for disciplines other than cricket as the government struggled to put aside money to raise sporting standards.
Bindra may have an indoor shooting range at home to practice, but still needed steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal's Olympic Trust to back him when the supply of ammunition dried up due to strict government controls.
The situation was so bad that Indian shooting officials were on the verge of pulling the team out of the Olympics before the sports ministry and private sponsors stepped in as saviors.
"I sincerely hope this win will change the face of Olympic sport in India," said Bindra. "In our country, Olympic sports are not really a priority, I hope now they will get more attention."
India has won eight field hockey Olympic gold medals, but the next best individual performance is trap shooter Rajyavardhan Rathore's silver at Athens four years ago.
The euphoria over Bindra's achievement will last till the next cricket series comes around, but if this does not provide the fillip that other sports need, nothing will.
It, however, still needs single-minded devotion and hard work to win an Olympic gold and Bindra set an example by realizing a dream that began as a 17-year-old in his first Games in Sydney in 2000.
The calm and composed young man has been so unmoved by the euphoria around him that teammate Rathore said "we call him the guy who is constantly comatose".
Asked how Bindra reacted to that, Rathore quipped: "He does not, he's comatose you see."