In the Olympic Games there's a temptation to measure greatness by the number of medals won. This carries a bias towards those who enter many events and do well in most or all of them. On the other hand, there are those who enter only one event because that's what they specialise in, or that's all that's available. And among those athletes, those who came back Olympiad after Olympiad and keep on winning their one gold. Think Steve Redgrave or Al Oerter.

The world's second most populous nation, India came into the 2008 Olympics with a total of eight gold medals ever. All eight of them in men's hockey. The last of them in 1980. India had never, ever, produced an individual gold medallist.

Stand up, Abhinav Bindra. On Monday he won the 10 metre air rifle shooting event to become India's first individual gold medallist.