It is her compassion that shone through. Her empathy for a fellow athlete lit up the dramatic night on Super Saturday at the Olympics.

Her opponent had just folded, her dream shattered as well as that of China of monopolising the podium in women’s badminton. And Saina did not jump with joy for the medal she had just won. She first went up to her opponent, Wang Xin, tapped on her shoulder from behind and then hugged her in one of sport’s great moments of commiseration.

The last bulwark against total Chinese domination had finally won only a bronze, the least of three metals up for grabs. But it represents a breakthrough for a nation of 1.2 billion people who have nursed sporting aspirations with a somewhat pitiable wistfulness considering one athlete, the swimmer Michael Phelps, has won twice as many Olympic gold medals as all of India put together in decades and decades of participation. But all that is set to change.

Saina’s blood, sweat and tears says so. Saina’s medal does not even represent a gender breakthrough because another Indian woman had won Olympic bronze before her. Karnam Malleswari may have done it in the somewhat unfashionable womanly pursuit of weightlifting but her place in history is guaranteed. What Saina promises to do is to open up all the games for girls and women willing to put in the hard yards in striving for sporting success.

Bob Beamon was great for about a few seconds but he achieved a sporting greatness that may never be forgotten. Roger Bannister similarly attained greatness in a touch under four minutes. Jesse Owens took over a whole Olympics in Nazi Germany while Mark Spitz took Munich by storm and Phelps owned Beijing. Saina is great not for the medal but for the effort she has put into her sporting career, which is all too rare for Indian sportspeople beyond the cricket arena with its glittering rewards system.

“Greatness is not something you can lay down rules for. Not in sport, not in art, not in anything else in life” - are words borrowed from a great sporting diarist. They seem to apply to Saina because not for a moment in her badminton career has she been seen publicly losing her cool, or dropping that vivacious smile on her lips. She has never allowed the beauty of her inner self to be destroyed by the momentary ups and downs of sport. If more kids are going to be picking up a racquet for sport, Saina would have been the inspiration.

“It’s never easy for her. The Chinese can lose to each other and take some time off. But Sana has got to earn every point, fight for every game and every match,” explained P. Kashyap in a television interview.

In the sea of Chinese shuttlers, she is a lone Indian battling for honour, which by itself is remarkable. Amidst all this and her own battles with fitness, Saina shines with her equanimity that is never ruffled.

At Deccan Chronicle, we think the world of her because she is such a fine sporting ambassador. We laud her for her never-say-die spirit in singlehandedly taking on the might of China, the emerging sporting superpower. We have no doubt that Saina may have opened up the floodgates at last.