Abhinav Bindra wins first gold in 10m Shooting

This is a news that will cheer many Indians.
After all, this is India's first individual gold medal
in Olympics. The last time India won any gold medal was
for Hockey in 1980 in Moscow.

Every Olympics or Asian Games, ordinary Indians take all their sports cynicism and heap it on our hapless sports persons.

The point is winning medals doesn't happen by accident repeatedly. It is a product of institutionalizing sporting and developing a sports culture.
Unless we sow we cannot expect to reap.

For a country beleaguered by terrorism and tackling issues that come with having a large population, winning medals is not a priority.

But India has global ambitions for sure.
But big powers of the world are also sports power houses. Big countries fight for supremacy in every field.
In a way, count of the medals won is akin to counting the warheads each country has (albeit a more pleasant one).
The positioning of US and China as rivals (and therefore as equals) is hard to miss.