Watching the Olympics this past weekend has been equal parts exhilarating and depressing. Seeing the American men win the 4 x 100 m swimming relay last night was un-freaking-real! But it also sent me in to full, early mid-life crisis mode. Am I the only one? I kept thinking how I’m now too old and beat-up to be an Olympian and I was feeling kind of jealous of fellow Wolverine Michael Phelps (would my upper body look like that if I growled in victory poolside?). And then this morning my depression lifted some. Even though I woke to the upsetting news that American Badminton stud Raju Rai had lost to a Finn (read here to understand how hard the environment is), I was quickly informed that Abhinav Bindra of India won the Gold in the 10m Air Rifle! It was Bindra that turned out to be the great brown hope.
So how did Abhinav help me to avert my midlife crisis until another day? Just look at our boy. He looks like and ordinary IT guy or an engineer or friendly grad student. He is now a national hero. A Peter Parker of sorts. He is the great common brown guy hope! Not all of us can have Phelps upper body, but some of us can imagine looking like this (I like paintballing for instance 
).
From a virtual non-entity to the country’s hottest property overnight, Abhinav Bindra has struck gold. Not just in Olympics. The Chandigarh shooter who picked up India’s first ever individual gold in Olympics is expected to see his brand value shooting up to a couple of crores, riding not only on his historic feat but also his youthful personality. [Link]
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p>Oh, lighten-up you nationalists! I’m just joking around. A hearty congrats to Abhinav! The dude even has over a 1000 comments on his latest blog entry. A feat unmatched by even…me. Well at least I can go after that record.
And for every hero of the day there is the sad story of the day. Poor Sania. Pulled out because her wrist was hurting. That’s what cortisone injections are for woman!
Update: Raj sports the bronze. Awesome.
I don’t know, CuteKidGate has ruined the Olympics for me. This will haunt China more than the Blair Witch Project haunts Barry Bonds. I haven’t been this disillusioned since Milli Vanilli said; “Read my lips”, then went ahead and raised taxes anyway.
48 · Doppleganger said
Imagine my shock when I want to the post office to mail a letter, look on the wall, and then…oh, never mind.
Actually we are all Gujarati…
Ich Bin Ein Dhokla.
53 · Branch Dravidian said
Count this konkani out. It is hard to think of a greater insult.
I despise ESPN and SportsCenter specifically because of their incessant smart-ass comments. With a glint in their eye, they’ll cut you down to size. Drag’em to down wallow in their squalor, no big deal, no valor.
It is a BIG deal. Leave his personal appearance alone, especially with some miserable out-of-date photograph. What’s next? His skin tone?
Ummmm. How long have you been reading this blog again?
And I know you feel this way since you put BIG in all caps.
The miserable picture is from his official Olympic profile. Now that you mention it he does look kind of pasty.
India has had a fair few sharp shooters innit?
Does that make you feel better, cutting him down to your size (or complexion)? The man has inspired millions and in a South Asian blog, you immediately mock his appearance? It is emulating the circling buzzards of ESPN.
I found it interesting in his Wiki entry he is the sole distributor of the Walther in India. Imagine Federer whilst playing being the sole distributor of Wilson in his country. His family is poised to profit from the achievement… phenomenal business acumen, timing and resources.
It is kind of ironic for India to win its first individual gold in shooting. The poor guy cannot eat his winnings in Shikar, unless he goes after the chickens.
Conviniently we seem to forget this!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7556489.stm
no lapdance. we were too busy counting the rupia and pounding the drums made of the skins of the backs of 3 year old babes ripped from the arms of their mothers in the indian countryside while they loomed exquisite carpets that i repose my fat bottom on even as i enjoy the games that are these olympics.
HAHaHAAHAHAHAAA laughs maniacally HAHaHAAHAHAHAAA
It is depressing in itself to watch the Olympics while being brown….and I can’t even latch on to my country of birth origin for pride either since Canada hasn’t one medal yet either…
but congrats to Abhinav & Raj for making it a little bit less so. I’m proud of them.
I really think if the subcontinent focused on sports that the impoverished masses could do well in, like soccer, boxing, gymnastics etc. and provided a platform for their development we could have more than a decent showing.
Raj Bhavsar looks like Kal Penn on steroids. Watching Raj and the chinese-american guy compete together on the US Olympic Gymnastic Team was kinda like watching “Harold and Kumar Go To The Beijing Olympics”….
Abhinav Bindra has a personal western coach and his own personal shooting range. Rathore who won a silver medal in shooting in the last Olympics also had a personal coach from the West. How many indians can afford to be shooting stars? Though one can expect the desi herd mentality to kick in and the politicians and tycoons are likely to set up a few shooting ranges.
I think it will be more significant if one of India’s boxers wins a medal in this Olympics. Having watched Indian boxers, and a desi boxer from Mauritius, convincingly beat some world class opponents in Beijing; and remembering the remarkable silver medal performance of Amir Khan (representing Britain) in the last Olympics (he is still undefeated in his professional career), I think it is reasonable to conclude that desis can be contenders in this sport in the near future. If many more desis make their mark in the shooting and fighting sports it could go some ways in alleviating the wimpy pushovers stereotype of desis.
Excluding Fencing there are 51 gold medals that can be won in the Combat Sports: Boxing, Wrestling, Judo and Tae Kwon Do. The Cubans dominate boxing while east asians do very well in Judo and Tae Kwon Do, and the turkic nations shine in Wrestling. These sports require little money which is why the wealthy developed nations do not monopolize them. India has an ancient history, independent of western influence, in the martial arts. Gama Pahalwan was one othe greatest wrestlers of the 20th century. I think there is plenty of talent in India waiting to be recognized and nurtured. Blame the culture and the system for India’s failures.
There’s really not a strong sports infrastructure in India (aside from cricket) for competing in sports at the international level. It’s too bad, too, because there’ve been many talented athletes from the region who have chosen not to pursue careers as athletes for many reasons, including income security. But there’s also a high opportunity cost to becoming an athlete if you don’t think you’ll have the training/coaching to compete at a level that will ensure corporate sponsorships, etc. Of course this interaction is classed — but it’s similar in many other countries (sans China). Anyway, I don’t mean to diverge the thread topic, just saying I think it’s ok to lament the lack of “athletic achievement” in India (in the Olympic context) understanding that it’s not an inherent or intrinsic lack of competency, but most likely a lack of support.
An interesting post on Passtheroti points out something funny about abhinva’s victory, to neone reading an indian newspaper… the big story was “indian wins gold medal for shooting” and the second headline was “police shoot unarmed protestors in kashmir, 11 killed”… thats india for you.
67 · gems_bond said
The only thing interesting about it is that PTR would find nothing noteworthy about Kashmiris terrorizing their Kashmiru Hindu neighbors. It’s only a human rights abuse when it’s the govt that’s shooting, you have to have power in a macro environment to be racist/bigot. So many damn get out of jail free cards for the Left…
There must be better ways to drive traffic to PTR, you think?
Now, trying to bring it back on topic. Anil Kumar is doing India proud in boxing. This is something to be proud of even if he doesn’t secure a medal. Maybe the economics of boxing lend itself to India. It is associated with the urban poor here in the US
You mean Akhil Kumar? Let’s hope he has better luck w/ officials than Khashaba Jadhav.
Akhil Kumar defeated the world champion in his weight class in a very close match and is now one fight away from an olympic medal. If he wins his next fight he is guaranteed a bronze medal and a shot at the gold. If he wins the gold he will be a super star in India. His cocky, outgoing personality is a stark contrast to the shy, reclusive, nerdy Abhinav Bindra, though both are equally short, and his appeal will be greater among the indian masses.
Meanwhile the results of the World Junior Chess Championships are in and an Indian boy, Abhijeet Gupta, and an Indian girl, Harika Dronavalli, are now the World Junior Champions:
http://wjcc2008.tsf.org.tr/
With the current undisputed World Chess Champion, Viswanathan Anand, also an Indian national it is accurate to say that indians are currently dominant in Chess, a game that was invented in India.
BTW, the current Women’s World Chess Champion is chinese. So it is an asian sweep.
All the fighting Kumars have done quite well so far.