WaybackWire

BEIJING, Monday.—Abhinav Bindra won India’s first individual Olympic gold medal today, hitting 10.8 with his last shot to take the men’s 10m air rifle at the Beijing Shooting Range.

The 26-year-old went into the final in fourth place after qualifying with 596. He then shot 104.5, the best final score of the day, the International Shooting Sport Federation said. It is India’s first Olympic gold of any kind since the hockey team won in 1980.

Henri Hakkinen of Finland fell to bronze on 698.9 after a last shot of 9.7. The defending champion, Zhu Qinan of China, took silver with 699.7 and cried at the press conference as he apologised to the Chinese people. “I put all my efforts to win the Gold, but I failed,” Zhu said.

“I hope that my medal will help sport and Indian sportsmen,” Bindra said.

New Delhi answered the same day. “This is the first individual gold medal won by our country and you have done the nation proud through this spectacular achievement,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a message. President Pratibha Patil told Bindra that “you have realized the dream of a billion of our people”.

At the family farm at Kishanpura, near Chandigarh, his parents sat through anxious moments in front of the television. Then relatives danced to dhol drums. “We are on the top of the world,” said his mother, Babli Bindra.

NEW DELHI, Thursday.—Abhinav Bindra received a hero’s welcome in New Delhi today, with receptions from President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The rewards began within a day of his gold. Punjab has promised Rs 1 crore. The sports ministry is giving Rs 30 lakh, on top of the Rs 1 crore that team sponsor Samsung promised for a gold medallist. Haryana and the Board of Control for Cricket in India have each pledged Rs 25 lakh.

Railways Minister Lalu Prasad has announced a free lifetime first-class AC train pass for Bindra and a companion, including the Shatabdi and Rajdhani trains.

Kapil Dev called the gold the country’s biggest sporting achievement, bigger than the 1983 World Cup. “The gold medal, which slipped from my hands during the Rome Olympics in 1960, is back,” said Milkha Singh.

Bindra wrote on his blog that “the enormity of the goodwill generated has caught me by surprise.” He added: “I ask the Indian people to support our athletes more.”

The Guardian reported on Thursday that an official of India’s rifle association had said the sights on Bindra’s rifle were tampered with before the final. No complaint was lodged. In the same report, Baljit Singh Sethi, secretary general of the National Rifle Association of India, was quoted as saying that “even if someone had done it you should forget it now that you have won”.

BEIJING, Sunday.—Singapore’s women lost the Olympic team table tennis final to China today but took silver, Singapore’s first Olympic medal since 1960, the Associated Press reported.

China won 3-0 at the Peking University Gymnasium, with President Hu Jintao and IOC president Jacques Rogge in the crowd. It was China’s 33rd gold medal of the Games.

The crowd was hushed. After three shouts of “Go Singapore!”, the arena announcer said: “Thanks everyone.”

“China is the best team, so for us to beat all the other teams, I think we accomplished what we set out to do,” said Singapore’s Li Jia Wei.

In Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong broke off his National Day Rally speech at the University Cultural Centre to report on the final. He had Team Singapore’s chef de mission, Dr Tan Eng Liang, vice-president of the Singapore National Olympic Council, on the phone.

BEIJING, Saturday.—Usain Bolt of Jamaica won the Olympic 100m in a world record 9.69 seconds tonight in the Bird’s Nest, thumping his chest in celebration.

Richard Thompson of Trinidad took silver in 9.89 and Walter Dix bronze in 9.91. The 21-year-old’s win is Jamaica’s first Olympic 100m title.

“It was crazy, phenomenal. I wasn’t even looking at the time I just came here to win. I am the Olympic champion. I’m just happy with that,” Bolt said.

In Jamaica, a blogger from Bolt’s home parish was heading to a motorcade in Falmouth. “He is from Sherwood Content in my parish of Trelawny,” the blogger wrote.

The island is under a tropical storm watch as Fay approaches, but supermarkets reported limited sales of storm supplies on Saturday morning. Richard Chen, a director of Super Plus Food Stores, told the Gleaner that “people were in the Olympic mood and have not realised that we are on a tropical storm watch”.

In the United States, NBC held the athletics finals for prime time, and some viewers were angry not to see the race live. “But the idiots missed out on showing live the single most impressive display of athleticism in these Olympics,” one wrote on Reddit.

BEIJING, Tuesday.—Two moments from last Friday’s opening ceremony turn out to have been stagecraft.

The Beijing Times has reported that 28 of the 29 firework footprints shown on television were computer-generated. Only the last was filmed live. A company spent almost a year making the 55-second sequence, and organisers said a helicopter could not have filmed the fireworks safely.

“Most of the audience thought it was filmed live - so that was mission accomplished,” said Gao Xiaolong, head of the ceremony’s visual effects team.

Today it emerged that Lin Miaoke, the nine-year-old girl seen singing at the ceremony, was miming to a recording by seven-year-old Yang Peiyi. The ceremony’s general music designer, Chen Qigang, said a member of the Politburo had insisted on the change. “This is in the national interest,” he said.

“No, my voice was there,” said Yang Peiyi.