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New Delhi: A babyfaced Chandigarh gunner laid his hands on the most coveted piece of metal in the world of sports but it was a long-haired swashbuckler from the backwaters of Jharkhand who kept the cricket-crazy nation enamoured in yet another engrossing year for Indian sports.
It was quite an Indian August in Beijing as Abhinav Bindra became India's first Olympic gold medallist and in the same dizzy fortnight, Vijender Singh traded punches and Sushil Kumar demonstrated his full range of wrestling manouevres to bag bronze medals.
Elsewhere, the suave Viswanathan Anand defended his World Championship crown in Germany, mother of two MC Mary Kom juggled family and boxing to win her fourth straight world title and a nomadic Jeev Milkha Singh earned numerous frequent flier miles and four silverwares as well to rise to world number 36.
All along, cricket kept the entire nation engaged and engrossed, with Team India reaching dizzy heights under its charismatic helmsman Mahendra Singh Dhoni and a Twenty20 mania, post-Indian Premier League, sweeping the country.
Still, every other feat paled in comparison with the gold medal Bindra shot down in the 10m air rifle event on that memorable day of August 11.
Few expected the reticent shooter to strike gold but the ace marksman did just that to trigger a euphoria back home where a star-starved nation found a new hero in an introvert shooter.
Olympic glory eluded him but Gagan Narang nevertheless clocked up two perfect scores -- 600/600 in Germany and 400/400 in Bangkok -- against his name in the same year.
Earlier in June, Ronjan Sodhi did something similar by winning the gold at the ISSF World Cup in Belgrade, having equalled two world records in double trap. It was boxing's annus mirabilis as well as Vijender, looking more a chiselled model than a boxer, returned from Beijing with the bronze medal dangling from his neck.
Akhil Kumar and Jitender Kumar fell tantalisingly short of the feat but both played their role to put India in the global boxing map.
Equally impressive was Mary Kom's feat as the mother of two returned from a two-year sabbatical to become women's world champion for an unprecedented fourth time.
Chess wizard Viswanathan Anand also ensured that he finished the year with his World Championship title safe and intact.
Anand's 6.5-4.5 win against Vladimir Kramnik made him the first person to win the title in three different formats -- knockout (2000), tournament (2007) and matchplay (2008).
Following Anand's footsteps, Abhijeet Gupta and Dronavalli Harika went on to become the Under-20 boys' and girls' world champions respectively in Turkey.
