A silver grenade that opened the doors for Indian hopefuls

The Grenadiers originated in the 17th century as storm troopers moving ahead of attacking troops, throwing grenades. The regiment went on to become an elite force of Indian Army. Cut to the start of the 21st century and it took the mental strength of a Grenadier to storm the Olympic bastion, instill confidence among the Indian sportspersons and give them a license to dream.
It was a Tuesday when Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore gave India the silver lining. Going by the progress of Indian shooters in the last eight years, that herculean effort hasn't gone waste and they have surely seized the historic moment provided by the trap shooter.
The Indian contingent marched at the opening ceremony of Athens Olympics as a nation renowned for her hockey prowess with a haul of eight gold medals. In individual events, the latest collection included just two bronze medals - Leander Paes (Atlanta 1996) and Karnam Malleswari (Sydney, 2000).
Despite their lack of medals, India had pinned their hopes on the shooting contingent led by the air rifle shooters including debutant Abhinav Bindra, Anjali Vedpathak and world record holder Suma Shirur. But the world came crashing down for Abhinav and Co. as they narrowly missed a podium finish. Suma ended 8th, Bindra was 7th while Anjali crashed out in the first round.
Then it was Rathore in men's double trap. After a near disastrous preliminary round, the army officer entered the six-man final in fifth place but then came back strongly to spark celebrations across India. Rathore's preliminary round score of 135 was nine behind UAE's Ahmed Almaktoum, a gap nearly impossible to bridge in the final.
It went all the way to the last shot when Rathore shouted "pull" and painted the sky with the colour of the clay pigeons that travelled at 90 kmph. Those two hits meant Rathore had pipped the two Chinese contenders, one of them by a single point. The final tally read Almaktoum (189 points), Rathore (179) and Zheng Wang (178). After climbing the podium from a near-impossible position, Rathore himself admitted that the pressure of a billion expectations was too much to handle. "If you ask how the feeling was, I have to say I would not like to go through it again," he had said. "I probably died many, many times out there."
At the age of 34, the Major of Indian Army, who earlier fought separatists in Kashmir, had climbed a peak never before touched by any Indian. Till Abhinav changed the colour of the medal in Beijing, in what was another last-shot thriller, Indians followed Rathore with adulation.
The cricket fans, who already taken a liking to the beauty pageants thanks to Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai, now began talking about guns, trap and double trap. Image managers and brand heads found that the joy of billion people can easily be tapped through Rathore. The man in uniform needed special permission for each of his new move as he was allowed to do commercials and travel around the corporate world to give motivational lectures. In the process, he also became Army's brand ambassador with huge cutouts of the Olympic hero coming up at several places in the national capital.
As India sends its biggest contingent to the London Games, the new warriors can attack with gusto as the Grenadier has already cleared the way for more gold medals.