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!