印度：个人奥运首金举国同庆_时事_双语阅读-查字典英语网

印度：个人奥运首金举国同庆

India celebrates first solo Olympic gold

Abhinav Bindra was lavished with praise and a huge cash bonanza after taking gold in the men's 10m Air Rifle，India's first ever individual Olympic gold medal

India's first ever individual Olympic gold medal won on Monday was greeted at home with disbelief and joy -- as well as renewed hope the country could break with its total obsession with cricket.

Abhinav Bindra, a 25-year-old businessman, was lavished with praise and a huge cash bonanza after taking gold in the men's 10m Air Rifle, in one of the most thrilling shooting finals in Olympic history.

India, winners of eight field hockey golds, had never won an individual Olympic title before Bindra's feat.

"This is an individual medal. It's a greater achievement. I was the captain of a team that won a gold but this is far bigger," said Vasudevan Bhaskaran, captain of the Indian hockey team that won gold at the Moscow Games in 1980.

Tributes were sent by President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, while Bindra's family home in Chandigarh in northern India was thronged with well-wishers.

"Abhinav has shown the world that an Indian can also stand on the podium," said Indian track and field legend P.T. Usha, whose best was an Asian Games gold.

Several Indian states were quick to announce cash awards totalling four million rupees (95,000 dollars), with an additional three million rupees from the central government and 2.5 million from an unlikely donor -- the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).