India's absurdly high official-to-athlete ratio in Olympic delegations and pathetically low medals-per-capita (or even delegates-per-capita) count in the Olympic rankings have been the butt of ridicule for ages now. Last Olympics, even the tiny UAE managed a gold thanks to a marksman from Dubai, but India, a country of over a billion, has not captured a gold in any individual Olympic sport in the history of the Olympics, and in any sport for several decades. This is a truly historic event for India in the Olympics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/sports/olympics/12indiagold.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin
NEW DELHI — India’s Olympic curse has finally been lifted, by the chief executive of a computer game company with a history of back problems.
Abhinav Bindra, 25, became the first-ever Indian to take home an individual Olympic gold medal, beating top Chinese and Finnish competitors Monday in a nail-biting finish during the 10-meter air rifle shooting competition. Bindra, a bespectacled M.B.A. from the north Indian city of Chandigarh, had shown promise as a teenage shooter but failed to win a medal in Athens, and hopes were not high before he competed in Beijing.
Until Bindra’s win, India’s population of more than one billion seemed to be collectively shrugging at all the Olympic carryings-on generated by China, its neighboring emerging global-market superpower.
Incidentally, he beat Zhu Qinan, last Olympics' gold winner in the same game.
