Olympics

espnstar.com reaches back to take a look at India's performance, misses and glory at the modern Olympic games so far.

ATHLETICS

India's tryst with the Olympics started in 1900 when Norman Pritchard participated in the Olympic Games held at Paris. Norman an Indian of British descent won two silver medals by bagging the second Position in the 200 meters and second in the 200 meters hurdles behind the legendary Alvin Kraenzlein of the United States.

The next memorable mention in Indian athletics came in 1924 with Brigadier Dalip Singh, who became the first Sikh to represent India in the Olympics. In the long jump event Dalip narrowly missed a mark which could have earned him a place among the first six.

Indian athletes after Independence were spearheaded by Henry Rebello, a Triple jumper. Rebello competed in independent India's first Olympics in London in 1948 where he was a genuine medal prospect. But his first leap in the final was shattered by an injury. His tale remains one of Indian sport's most tragic stories.

Any list on Indian Athletes cannot be complete without the mention of Milkha Singh. He has earned the nickname 'Flying Sikh' because of his marvelous running speed on the tracks. Singh was an Olympic 400m record holder in 1960 Rome Olympics. He also has to his credit Gold medals at the 1958 Commonwealth Games, the Asian Games 1958 (200 and 400 meters) and the Asian Games 1962 (200 meters). Singh is one of the greatest athletes India has ever produced.

Those Athletes who need special mention in this journey down memory lane include Gurbachan Singh Randhawa who won the fifth place in 100m hurdles in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and Sriram Singh in 1976 Montreal who came seventh in 800m.

The 'Payyoli Express' or PT Usha leads the Indian women athletic contingent. She was the first Indian woman (and the fifth Indian) to reach the final of an Olympic event by winning her 400 m hurdles Semi-final. Unfortunately she lost her bronze by 1/100th of a second. In the same year, 1984 Summer Olympics the four-member squad of the 400m women's relay comprising of PT Usha, MD Valsamma, Vandana Rao and Shiny Abraham bagged the seventh place.

Usha has other achievements to her credit. In the 10th Asian Games held at Seoul in 1986, PT Usha kept the Indian flag flying high by winning 4 gold and 1 silver medal. Here she created new Asian Games records in all the events she participated. Usha's five golds at the 6th Asian Track and Field Championship is also a record for the most number of gold medals by a single athlete in a single international meet.

Another star in the Indian athletic scene is Anju Bobby George who won the bronze medal in Long Jump at the World Athletics Championships 2003 in Paris. With this achievement, she became the first Indian athlete ever to win a medal in a World Athletics Championship. She went on to win the silver medal at the IAAF World Athletics Final in 2005.

SHOOTING

A sleeping giant in the sport, India has had only two representatives on the Olympic stage previously. The sport of shooting never assumed its full potential in India- an irony considering that Indians are admired for their eye and concentration. No Indian shooter figured in the Olympics for over a century. All that changed when Air Rifle specialist Abhinav Bindra became the youngest Indian participant at the 2000 Olympic Games. Four years later he represented India again at Athens 2004. Incidentally, he also broke the Olympic record but failed to win a medal.

But the true watershed moment for Indian shooting came courtesy his compatriot who was shooting clay birds in the double trap event- Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, then a Lt. Colonel in the Indian army, won India's first individual silver medal in the 2004 Summer Olympics. It was a landmark for India at the Olympics. An achievement hailed through the length and breadth of the country.
This triggered a renaissance of shooting the sport in India. Impressive performances at the various events at the world championships, Asiad and the Commonwealth have thrown up various promising marksmen. As many as nine Indian shooters have qualified for Beijing 2008. A remarkable achievement considering the lack of Infrastructure and ammunition supplies in the country. This augurs well for the sport in the country because through the years, Shooting in India has been a legacy waiting to happen.

HOCKEY

The masters of dazzling stickwork, winners of eight Olympic gold medals since their sparkling debut in 1928 when it was still a British colony, are no longer qualified to feature in the Olympic Games line-up.

India's field hockey received its biggest jolt when it snapped an 80-year relationship with Olympic field hockey, failing to qualify for the Beijing Olympics losing to Britain in the final's of Olympic qualifiers in Chile.

But the story has not always been bitter. In fact there were times when the population of India related to Olympics with the game of hockey. Every single game from the 1928 Olympics to the gold medal match in 1960 was won by players who were known worldwide for weaving magic with the hockey stick.

Between 1928 to 1956, India won the gold medal consecutively 6 times. They played 24 Olympic matches, won all 24, scored 178 goals (at an average of 7.43 goals per match) and conceded only 7. The two other gold medals for India came in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and the 1980 Moscow Olympics in the same game. It does not end here. For over 20 years, the only triple gold medallists for India were ‘Hockey Wizard' Dhyan Chand and goalkeeper Richard James Allen (1928-1936). After the 1956 Olympics, Balbir Singh Sr., Randhir Singh Gentle and Ranganathan Francis became the other triple gold medallists for India (1948-1956).

The victims of all the matches and that included the silver medallists were thrashed and that showed the kind of difference this team had with other teams. Something similar to what the Australian Cricket team had some 2 years back.

The Amsterdam Games became the first stage, for the wizardry of Dhyan Chand. The wizardry was not only meant for the spectators, but also for the opponents, for during several moments, the opponents were like spectators, with sticks and jerseys, as they could only watch Dhyan Chand`s magic and could do nothing about it.

The magic continued till 1956. Though Dhyan Chand retired but India never let its position slip for six consecutive Olympics. The first jolt came in the form of neighbour Pakistan at Rome (1960) when they denied India the gold in the finals.

India once again bounced back and topped the podium when they won the Tokyo Olympics Hockey gold, this was the first time Olympics were played in Asia. But since then it has been a downhill journey.

Bronze medals at Mexico (1968) and Munich (1972) were the signal for the end of India's dominance and, apart from the 1980 gold, which was the result of lot many western countries boycotting the event to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Indian hockey has never ever since then made any semifinal appearance till date.

WRESTLING

It was in 1920 Antwerp Olympic Games that for the first time two Indian wrestler Ganpat Shinde and Appaji Navale represented India. Their trip to the Olympics was financed by Sir Dorabji Tata. Ganpat Shinde gave away sparkling performance and narrowly missed the bronze medal in featherweight class.

After a gap of three Olympics and 16 years India again made an entry with a team of three wrestlers at Berlin in 1936, but the performance of that side was not up to the expectations, though the next outing at London Olympics in 1948 was satisfying. KD Jadhav, who became national champion few weeks prior to the Games, secured sixth place in the Flyweight division.

The Helsinki Olympics in 1952 though is the best Olympics for Indian wrestlers. Here India won her first and the only one medal so far in the Olympics Wrestling competitions. The honour of winning this coveted medal went to Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav who was placed third in the Freestyle Bantamweight class.

He fought magnificently and won five bouts in less than five minutes each before going down to the eventual gold medallist Japan's Shohachi, which lasted over 15 minutes. In his next bout, which was held immediately after it, he lost to Soviet Union's Rashid Mamedbekov and had to content with the bronze medal.

His teammate Mangwe Srirang Jadhav also performed well and was ranked fourth in the featherweight class. He lost his bronze medal bout to Josiah Hanson of USA by a solitary point.
Khashaba Jadhav's bronze is the only wrestling medal by any Indian wrestler but there have been numerous occasions when Indian grapplers came close to emulate Jadhav. Many Indian wrestlers have finished among the first six positions a lot of times.

In 1964, the 8-member wrestling squad was ranked ninth among 47 countries at Tokyo Olympics. This team topped the ranking amongst commonwealth nations and was number three among its Asian counterparts.

The ranking of India remained unchanged at number nine even during the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games.

The team which went for Los Angeles Olympics in the year 1984 finished eighth with Rajinder Singh finishing fourth in the 74 Kg category.

TENNIS

Tennis has been one of the few Olympic disciplines where India has always impressed. The legacy of Tennis in India walks hand in hand with that of Vijay Amritraj. One of the first to play in top-flight international tour tennis, this fierce competitor represented India in the 1988 Summer Olympics at Seoul, South Korea. Another veteran, Zeeshan Ali represented India in Seoul but was hard done by the tenth seed Swiss, Jakob Hlasek, in the second round who was later removed on doping charges.

Their hard work was taken forward by Ramesh Krishnan, son of Ramanathan Krishnan, who was one of India's leading tennis players in the 1960s. In the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Ramesh reached the men's doubles quarter-finals partnering Leander Paes. This acted as a catalyst in the Indian Olympic dream. Tennis was getting there.

The hopes materialised and the first medal came in the form of Leander Adrian Paes who finished a commendable third in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and got India a shining Olympic bronze. Since then Lee as he is fondly called, has been the flag bearer of Indian tennis in various tennis events across the globe. He will reunite with Mahesh Bhupathi at the Beijing Olympics to form the 'Indian Express'.