Abinav and susheel does it for india

A billion people and one gold!

A 108-YEAR jinx has finally been snapped. An Indian has done something no Indian has done before - striking gold at an individual Olympic event. Abhinav Bindra’s feat is a moment to savour for a country feeding off fading memories of hockey triumphs. He has inscribed his name in India’s sporting history by winning the gold medal in the 10m rifle shooting event at the Beijing Olympics. His achievement is all the more remarkable considering the world champion overcame a spine injury that prevented him from lifting a rifle for almost a year before he resumed training.India’s first gold in any event since the hockey team’s triumph in Moscow in 1980, understandably, has triggered a huge outpouring of euphoria, jubilation and even relief. Everyone seems to have been queuing up with cash prizes to ‘celebrate’ his podium finish. Well, of course, the 25-year-old Bindra deserves this and much more. It’s rare for any Indian to hit the bulls’ eye in any event, let alone where it is most required: rifle shooting. Thus, the fact that Abhinav Bindra rose to the occasion to hit the target is by itself remarkable. But the more remarkable and joyous matter is that he aimed right when it was, most desperately, needed.As we celebrate Bindra’s gold, let us not lose perspective. For a country of India’s size and population, its showing has always been pathetic Olympics after Olympics. For India Olympics always looked an impossible peak to conquer. Every four years we go into the Games ruminating on the modest prospects of Indian sportspersons and suffer the continual quiet humiliation of being absent from the gold-medal tally. And 61 years of nation-building later, India’s sporting credentials remain bleak. The dismal statistics clang louder than the medals we have won: a total of eight golds — all in field hockey, including six in a row from 1928 to 1956. Indians have also picked up two silver and five bronze medals since they began competing in 1920. One has to go all the way back to 1900 Paris Games to find two silver medals won by an athlete from India — Norman Pritchard, an Englishman born and raised in Calcutta (now Kolkata).India’s most celebrated claims to Olympic track-and-field glory remain the heroics of ‘The Flying Sikh’, Milkha Singh, who came fourth at the 400m race at the 1960 Rome Games. More ‘recently’, P T Usha, the ‘Payyoli Express’, missed her bronze at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics by a hairsbreadth. So, in over a century, India has won just a few individual medals — and none of them gold. A billion people and no gold medal. Why? It is such a great mystery and a greater embarrassment why India could not produce celebrated athletes, at least in direct proportion to its population. For far too long, we have complained about our failures in sport. We have blamed the system and the politicians who run it. We have even questioned our genetics. Every four years, it has become a collective national ritual to blame everyone else when we find ourselves wanting in the global mirror of the Olympics, only to move on and repeat the same catharsis four years later. Bindra has now shown that it is possible to succeed in spite of the system.For too long dozens of other countries, some with sporting establishments even more dysfunctional than India’s have staked out regular spots on the medals table, while Indians have glumly watched their best fail to qualify. Even more under-developed countries of far lesser size and eminence than India have many Olympic gold medals to show for their sporting abilities. The rich tallies of even small countries like Cuba (44 golds), not to speak of giants like the US (with more than 800), should shame Indians. Indian sportsmen have perhaps taken the motto of amateur sports a bit too literally. That motto says that playing and participating are more important than winning. This is a creed that Indians have been sincerely following when most modern sportsmen scoff at it. One plays to win and not to lose. Bindra’s triumph will now hopefully inspire Indian sportsmen to abandon antiquated notions and to compete only to win the gold.

Sushil bas a bronze

Sushil Kumar brought smiles on the faces of millions of Indians across the globe by giving the country its second medal of the Beijing Olympics after Abhinav Bindra brought home the Gold earlier. Indian grappler Sushil, bagged a bronze in wrestling’s 66 kg freestyle event, exactly 56 years after KD Jadhav brought glory at Helsinki in 1952.
Indian grappler Sushil Kumar won the 1st repachage round against American Doug Schwab and pinned down Belarussian Albert Batyrov in the second .The glorious moment came after Sushil outclassed Kazakh grappler Leonid Spiridonov of Kazakastan 2-1, 0-1, 1-0 to win an Olympic Bronze medal.
Sushil won two repechage rounds after he had lost his first grapple in the morning to a far superior Ukrainian Andriy Stadnik 3-8.
What is Repachage
Wrestlers who only lose against the two finalists make up a repechage. The repechage matches begin with wrestlers who lost in the first round (including the matches to obtain the ideal number) against one of the two finalists up to the losers in the semi-finals by direct elimination. Winners of the two repechage matches each receive a bronze medal.
Earlier in the day, Sushil proved easy meat for Ukrainian Andriy Stadnik in the first round of 66kg freestyle wrestling event, leaving the Indian grappler's medal hopes in Beijing Olympics hinging on the repechage.
Pitted against a far superior opponent, Sushil managed to score a technical point even though Stadnik led the first period 2-1.
In the second phase, Stadnik simply toyed with Sushil and scored six points and it looked a gross mismatch with the Indian struggling against the dominant Ukrainian.
"Stadnik was far superior but I don't have any regrets about Sushil. He tried his best but just could not do anything," coach PR Sondhi said.
"Stadnik was outstanding in the beginning and I think that was playing on his mind in the last period, Stadnik was just too good for him," he added.