Aapke Desi Olympians

In celebrations of the Olympics, that are now a week old, we thought it would be good to check in to see how Desis are fairing in the games. Please note that this does not include the awesome Pakistani Men's Field Hockey team aka Pakistan's lone representatives in the Olympics, as that will be it's own feature.

Abhinav Bindra: The biggest story of the Olympics by far for the subcontinent is the Gold Medal won by Abhinav in the Men's 10M Air Rifle. The medal represents the first individual Gold ever won by an Indian athlete at the Olympics, which is staggering considering that it is the second most populated country in the world. While most people point to the lack of a real sports program in India, such as the state of the art ones in the US or China, we think the problem here are the so-called Olympic sports themselves. The Olympic committee just doesn't have programs catered towards the strength of the Indian populace. Take Air Rifle for example, anyone who has seen any Akshay Kumar Khiladi movie from the 90's knows that Indians, especially homely looking males that would be relegated to henchmen roles in an Indian movie, are an awful shot. Akshay Kumar made it through the 90's with a career "shots fired at-to-shots absorbed" ratio of roughly 1,832:0. If dodging henchmen bullets were an Olympic sport, not only would he be the Michael Phelps of it, but would also have a lifetime endorsement deal that would put his face on every single bottle of Hajmola Digestive Tablets.
The problem here is the lack of focus and commitment of India's Olympic Committee to develop the talent, although this year has been a step in the right direction. This is the first year India sent a swim team, and although they didn't medal or anything it's nice to see them expanding. There is still a lot of work to be done though, starting with the official Indian Olympic Committee web page. Seriously, a country full of programmers and that's the best they can do? I've heard, from friends and associates, that there are umm adult Indian websites with better drop down menus. Anyway, aside from the page, the other big problem is the misallocation of funds and just general mismanagement. For example, check out how much money has been awarded to young Abhinav. Now I agree he should be heralded for his feat, but keep in mind that this is the son of a millionaire whose father built him a personal air-conditioned shooting range in the lead up to the games. Couldn't that money be better used in developing talent or paying the Desi Baba guy to build a better website, since he probably doesn't have much to do these days.
I don't want to be a party pooper, and hope that's not how I come off. We know that sports are trivial and everything else, but this is something that can be greatly improved with just better management. Congratulations to Abhinav though for his achievement as he has made the subcontinent proud. He should enjoy his day in the sun for the next month or so before being welcomed back by Narain Karthikeyan, Sania Mirza and Karnam Malleswari into the tender bosom of obscurity and indifference.

Raj Bhavsar and the US Men's Gymnastic Team: The US Men's team found it's way to an unexpected bronze medal in the team overall championships thanks partially to the efforts of last minute alternate Raj Bhavsar. Raj, as noted here before, is from Houston and desi, so I can only assume his parents work at HP/Compaq or the Dell headquarters in Austin. I would go into more details here, but I don't want to cop to the fact that I watched Men's Gymnastics till 1AM and held my breath as they did dangerous, mid-air transfers on the high bar. It really is majestic.

Paraguay's Javelin Thrower Leryn Franco: The track and field competitions start on Saturday so there's no update on this yet. We're covering her because she's technically desi through marriage. Leryn Franco is your bhabhi. Google her!

Getting To Know Vijender Kumar

The Olympic games are right around the corner and we're sick of the stereotype that desis are not athletic (I'm a splendid Madden football player). We'll be trying to showcase some promising Olympic hopefuls from all parts of South Asia. Today is Vijender Kumar's turn.

Vijender Kumar is probably the most promising South Asian athlete partaking in the Olympic games this summer. The young boxer has medaled in several Asian boxing tournaments as well as the Commenwealth Games a few years ago. In competition leading up to the Olympics he defeated the number one ranked boxer in his weight class. He also has a shot at becoming India's first professional boxer which may compel us at BihariShabab to purchase a pay-per-view event of young Vijender's first professional fight. In classic BihariShabab form we're going to break this down in an easy to manage biodata form. Information courtesy of wikipedia (as always) and The British Broadcasting Company.

Name: "Vicious" Vijender Kumar (Ed note: totally made up that nickname)
Hey, Vijender Kumar sounds Desi! We'd certainly hope so as he is, after all, representing India in the Beijing Olympics this August. He was born in Haryana where his father was a bus driver who worked overtime to pay for Vijender's boxing lessons.
Born: October 29, 1985 (age: 23)
Religion: It is official Olympic policy to not display religious beliefs so we're going to comply. Although if he works with Don King like he hopes to he may become a Muslim after his first stint in prison.
Education: According to wikipedia "Vijender is one the student in CBIT studying IT final year and a very sincere guy who is dedicated for on his work." So information technology is his major. Although according to the BBC he's an inspector for the Haryana Police Department which we assume is a full time job. I think it's safe to say that he's a crime fighting superhero who studies by day and foils crimes at night like some sort of Indian Batman (THE DARK KNIGHT WAS EFFING SWEET!).
Cut: Vijender is a middleweight fighting at 75kg.
Biwi/Bachey: Ladies, have I got good news for you. Vijender is single and ready to mingle!
Political Views: Official Olympic policy again dictates that politics can play no role in the games. However it's safe to say that Vijender is staunchly anti-cricket making inflammatory statements like "My blood boils when everybody goes gaga over cricket" and "It [cricket] is just an overrated game."
So What's The Big Deal? Well, Vijender has medaled in his previous few tournaments and has taken down some big names in amateur boxing. Vijender's cross, hook, and uppercut are all strong and he moves well in the ring making him a formidable opponent. Also Vijender has a great shot at being the Indian Oscar De La Hoya. He's a good looking dude and has even modeled for the Indian Maxim magazine, which is apparently very different from the American Maxim magazine what with the male models and such. If he is successful in the Olympics it is probable that he would go pro and if unsuccessful he'd probably become a professional male model and cavort with Bollywood item girls before becoming a low level Bollywood star himself. So either way he wins.
Will he win? The consensus is that the U.S. boxing team headed to Beijing is not as good as they have been in the past, however, India has never medaled in boxing in the Olympics so history is not on India's side. Ultimately it's an open competition with no clear favorite and that may help Vijender grab a medal and show his value to promotion companies. Either way we wish him and the rest of the boxing team the best of luck and hope that a brown athlete becomes successful to heighten our self-esteem. We haven't been the same since Vickesh Dhorasoo retired.

Jezebelle Guarantees Olympic Medal

Sania on the right, totally inappropriate.

Sania Mirza, India's number one ranked female tennis player, has guaranteed an Olympic medal for India this year in Beijing. The Indian Olympic team has a history of failure in the games with a total of 17 medals, 11 of which were for field hockey. The harlot Sania Mirza will have to overcome a deep pool of talent in women's tennis and since she couldn't get out of the first round at Wimbledon or any other tournament this year I'm going to assume that she'll do the same at the Olympics. Really the story here is that it is this difficult to find maybe 20 great athletes out of a billion people. You would think that there would be one fast Indian left in India, I wonder if anyone checked the martial races. The Indian Olympic committee has been spitting paan in the face of probability for nearly 100 years now. Bravo.

Little known fact; Aamir Khan used HGH to win the race.

FREE TIBET!

Aamir Khan is carrying the Olympic Torch for India in a move that angers supporters of Tibetan freedom. I for one, think that he's making the right decision. Tibet will never be free, for one thing they're Buddhists and according to my eighth grade social studies teacher Buddhists are non-violent. Also the Chinese government doesn't seem to care about what people think, I believe they ordered a tank to run over a man on international television and not a damn thing changed in China. I mean, don't get me wrong, Aamir Khan is a great actor, I cry like a bitch every time i watch Dil Chahta Hain (Its about guy love!) but I don't think he has the power to free Tibet by not carrying the Olympic Torch. Aamir Khan shouldn't worry about critics either, the Olympics will be over in a few months and then the world will forget about Tibet and we won't have to protest anything until the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Damn apartheid.....