With India’s First Gold, Suddenly a Billion People Notice the Olympics

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.

Perhaps that is not surprising. India’s performance at the Olympics has lagged behind even tiny countries whose populations and gross domestic products are just a fraction the size. In Athens, India took home a total of one medal, a silver, also in shooting. The last time India won gold in the Olympics was more than a quarter century ago, when the men’s field hockey team came out on top in the 1980 Moscow Olympics. This year, the hockey team failed to even qualify for the Games.

By Monday afternoon, though, this mysteriously nonathletic nation (unless you count cricket) seemed to have caught Olympic fever. Congratulations poured in to Bindra from India’s highest offices, including that of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who hailed the Bindra’s “spectacular achievement.”

On the streets of the nation’s capital, the mood was jubilant, and incredulous. “I couldn’t believe it,” said Malvika Singh Rana, a 24-year-old hardware engineer in central Delhi. At first when she heard Bindra had won a gold, “I thought he may be an non-resident Indian from Canada or United States,” she said. But when she realized he was truly an athlete from India, “I shouted, ‘Oh my God — an Indian has won the Olympic gold,’” she said.

“It really is a proud moment for us,” she said.

The Beijing Games were a minor event until Bindra’s victory. Olympic sponsorships are low-key here, advertising has been minimal and the government channel carrying the Games seems to be manned by announcers with little knowledge of sports.

On Sunday, Indian Olympic officials and athletes interviewed blamed the hand of fate for disappointing performances over the weekend.

What, exactly, has held India back from Olympic greatness is the stuff of much debate. Logic alone would dictate that with more than a billion people, about half of whom are under 25, India should have a pool of athletic talent to pull from that rivals China, the United States and Russia.

India also has a history rich in athletic performing arts like dance and tales of fierce battles that show an appreciation for physical prowess. Games that meld strength with skill, like polo, have been played for decades in India, and India invented its own physically challenging sports, like kabbadi, a sort of team wrestling. Still, India has traditionally excelled more at games that favor intellect over brawn and mass, like chess or Scrabble.

Much of the problem with developing Olympic champions here seems to be rooted in the very same things that make India a perpetual also-ran to China when it comes to economic development: poor infrastructure, entrenched political corruption and infighting, chaos and disorganization. Money earmarked for Olympic training often gets mysteriously sidelined; facilities for training are in poor shape; equipment goes missing.

Bindra, whose company Abhinav Futuristics sells controllers like joysticks for computer games, may have bypassed some of these problems. He is from a wealthy family and grew up with a shooting range in his home, according to local news reports.

Now, thanks to his win, he is being awarded cash and prizes in addition to praise. The Board of Control for Cricket, India’s wealthiest sporting institution, said it would give Bindra 2.5 million rupees (about $59,000) as a thank you for winning the gold. Despite its cricket-focused name, the B.C.C.I. has been trying to encourage Indian athletes to excel in several different disciplines, including boxing, archery and wrestling. The ministry of railways said it would give Bindra a free lifetime rail pass to travel via air-conditioned car, and even his marriage prospects were looking up.

Bindra’s mother, Babli, told the local CNN affiliate that his win “makes him an even more eligible bachelor” than he already was, but added, “I think it’s a bit too early to talk about him getting married.” First, she said, he should “enjoy his win and when the time comes we’ll talk” about a wedding.