Bindra breaks Olympic jinx, Dhoni toast of a nation

of sports but it was a long-haired swashbuckler from the

backwaters of Jharkhand who kept the cricket-crazy nation

enamoured in yet another engrossing year for Indian sports.

It was quite an Indian August in Beijing as Abhinav

Bindra became India’s first Olympic gold medallist and in the

same dizzy fortnight, Vijender Singh traded punches and Sushil

Kumar demonstrated his full range of wrestling maneuevres to

bag bronze medals.

Elsewhere, the suave Viswanathan Anand defended his World

Championship crown in Germany, mother of two MC Mary Kom

juggled family and boxing to win her fourth straight world

title and a nomadic Jeev Milkha Singh earned numerous frequent

flier miles and four silverwares as well to rise to world

number 36.

All along, cricket kept the entire nation engaged and

engrossed, with Team India reaching dizzy heights under its

charismatic helmsman Mahendra Singh Dhoni and a Twenty20

mania, post-Indian Premier League, sweeping the country.

Still, every other feat paled in comparison with the gold

medal Bindra shot down in the 10m air rifle event on that

memorable day of August 11.

Few expected the reticent shooter to strike gold but the

ace marksman did just that to trigger a euphoria back home

where a star-starved nation found a new hero in an introvert

shooter.

Olympic glory eluded him but Gagan Narang nevertheless

clocked up two perfect scores — 600/600 in Germany and

400/400 in Bangkok — against his name in the same year.