Author: Boria Majumdar

After the 1948 hockey gold-medal win in London, the Indian team, Balbir Singh senior had recounted, went to France to celebrate the win. Now, with the Indians back in France and PR Sreejesh calling it his final dance, the stakes are as high as they were in 1948. Perhaps, it is apt to look back at what happened in that final. It was actually the dream final: Newly independent India, the defending champions from 1936, taking on Great Britain, their former imperial masters who had avoided playing Olympic hockey as long as India remained a colony. That the Indians were…

Sport and politics have always gone hand in hand, and the Olympics are no different. Followers of sport will not forget the Black Power Salute in Mexico City (1968), for example. But we Indians also have our own story, when in 1936, the team refused to salute Adolf Hitler at the opening ceremony, creating a massive stir in Berlin. The Indians were the only contingent apart from the Americans not to perform the raised-arm salute as a mark of obeisance to the German Chancellor. British-loyalist newspapers were more focused on the defiant US contingent, making only a brief mention of…

When we speak of heartbreaks at the Olympic Games, the first Indian name that comes to mind is that of Henry Rebello. He was distinctly unlucky in the London Games of 1948. A 19-year-old triple jumper, Rebello was a favourite to clinch gold, having shown exemplary promise in meets preceding the Games and consistently jumping over 50 feet, the distance covered by the eventual gold-medal winner in London. Highly rated by experts, Rebello had qualified for the finals with ease – a jump of 49 feet, easily clearing the cut-off of 48 feet, 6 inches. But as luck would have…

Twenty-seven years before Chak De! India was released, the first Indian women’s hockey players made it to the Olympics. Perhaps those early pioneers would empathise with the trials and tribulations of the fictional players in the film. When women’s hockey was first introduced at the Moscow Olympiad in 1980 as a medal sport, India were one of the six teams that contested for honours. The other nations in the fray were Zimbabwe, USSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Austria. India began their campaign by defeating the Austrians 2–0 at the Young Pioneers stadium in Moscow. Despite the victory, coach Kartar Singh was…

We love to sensationalise, and we love controversy. And, to be honest, controversy sells. A headline which says India is sending 117 athletes and 140 support staff is made for controversy. The immediate understanding is that officials and babus are traveling at government expense and will have a merry time in Paris. With such things a regular occurrence in the past, the media can’t be blamed either. Things are, however, different this time round. A detailed scrutiny of each of the 140 names reveal that more than 85 per cent of the support staff are coaches, sports scientists, medical teams…

At Los Angeles 1984, history of sorts was made when the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) picked five women in a contingent of eight athletes. Of the five, PT Usha had impressed the most, having won the 400 metres hurdles in a pre-Olympic meet by defeating some of the world’s best, including Debbie Flintoff of Australia and Lesley Maxie of the USA. Her timing of 55.8 seconds may have been slightly slower than her best but it would certainly be enough to get her into the Olympic final, especially with the world’s best hurdlers – all from behind the old Iron…

Yet another forgotten hero who made an Olympic final after Milkha Singh (1960) and Gurbachan Singh Randhawa (1964) was Sriram Singh, who finished seventh in the final of the 800 metres at Montreal in 1976. A protégé of the dynamic Ilyas Babar, one of the best Indian athletics coaches of all time, Sriram moved to middle-distance running at Babar’s insistence. He won silver at the Bangkok Asian Games of 1970 and followed it up with a gold in Tehran in 1974. However, Montreal was surely his finest hour, though he failed to win a medal. That Sriram was a medal…

KD Jadhav’s bronze-medal winning effort in wrestling never found a first-page mention in leading newspapers in 1952. The celebrations were muted and were restricted to the sports pages, which were often inconsequential and insignificant. Only the men from his native village, who escorted him with a cavalcade of over 150 cows, gave him a memorable reception. In contrast, Leander Paes’ effort in 1996 was perceived as a ‘national’ triumph, one that was celebrated nationwide amid all classes and vocations. In terms of significance, an Olympic medal in the 1990s appeared to matter much more than in the 1950s when sport…

PV Sindhu had just won her quarterfinal in Rio in 2016 against the legendary Wang Yihan of China and all of us, members of the Indian media contingent, were euphoric. One more win and Sindhu could finally end India’s medal drought. It was late evening in Rio that same day when I met Gopi at the gate of the Olympic Games village. It was past 9pm and I had just finished a round of interviews with some of our boxers. Gopi was alone and was pacing up and down rather aimlessly. He hadn’t seen me and was somewhat surprised when…

It was early morning in Paris – or rather, a little distance away from the French capital – and Mirabai Chanu and her coach Vijay Sharma had just finished the morning warm-up. First things first, Mira is injury-free and ready to go. They reached Paris on July 7, and have used the week to get acclimatised to the weather and the conditions. “We used this week to get going and will now start to build load in the coming week,” said Sharma. “We have time at hand and if things go well and we have God’s blessings, August 7 will…