A team we Indians never knew about
When we think of dominance, at least in sports, what comes to mind? The Australian cricket team of the 2000s, Michael Phelps, and the Brazilian football team of the 1960s are some of the players and teams we may think of. However, let me tell you about one Indian team that dominated a sport in a way that no other team could ever dream of matching. No, I am not talking about cricket—I am talking about hockey.
The Indian hockey team of the 20th century set a new standard for dominance. We won six consecutive Olympic gold medals in 1928, 1932, 1936, 1948, 1952, and 1956—a streak that could have been even longer if the 1940 and 1944 Olympics had not been cancelled. For 52 years, India won a medal at every Olympics except one.
We had legends whom the hockey world will remember forever. One of them was Major Dhyan Chand, who won three Olympic gold medals, scored around 400 international goals, and has one of India’s biggest sporting awards, the Dhyan Chand Award, named after him. Leslie Claudius, who is regarded as one of the greatest half-backs in hockey, won three gold medals and one silver. There was also Udham Singh, who also won three gold medals and one silver, and Balbir Singh Sr., who helped India win three consecutive Olympic gold medals.
Even after 1956, India continued to enjoy a relatively dominant run. We won silver in 1960, losing to a Pakistani squad that included several players who had been born in undivided India. We won gold again in 1964, bronze in 1968 and 1972, and the Hockey World Cup, which was established in 1971, in 1975.
In 1976, India returned empty-handed from the Olympics for the first time in many years. However, in 1980, we won our last Olympic gold medal in hockey.
After that, India went without an Olympic hockey medal for 41 years before winning consecutive bronze medals in 2021 and 2024. However, the modern team remains only a shadow of the dominance India once enjoyed. The worst part is that most people do not even know how great our hockey team once was.
One issue I would like to highlight in this blog is the lack of investment in sports other than cricket in India. We dominate cricket and perform reasonably well in a few other sports, but we still lag far behind many countries despite having a population of nearly 1.5 billion people.
I hope that, in the near future, India begins investing more seriously in sports such as hockey so that we can once again enjoy the kind of dominance we experienced in the good old days.
I agree vivaan . Cricket is overrated . And somewhere sports are business and no more sports . - Mom
ReplyDeletehi Vivaan this was a very well written article. Indian hockey team had a glorious past and I used to follow it up until the time when Dhanraj Pillai used to play.
ReplyDeleteThere is an obvious discrepancy in the popularity and attention that Cricket is given in our country and other sports do tend to take a backseat. There are various reasons why this is happening and I particularly liked the viewpoint shared by sunil Chettri recently. In his interview he mentioned that instead of criticising the popularity of Cricket other sports should learn from its rise in the last 10 to 15 years they have managed to invest in centre of excellence improved their domestic structure and there has been significant contribution from their former players in the roles of coaching and administration. This has helped guide younger players and give them the confidence to excel. He mentioned that such involvement of former players in other sports is very less and the scouting of grass fruit Talent does not occur and they do not get the opportunity to get fast track to central institutions to enhance their skills.
I look forward to reading more of such blogs from you.
Hi! Mansi here.
ReplyDeleteVery well written article and I must admit I was not aware of this glorious past of Indian hockey, and no wonder it is the national sport of India.
I think we have had it tough as traditionally we tend to focus on studies and consider sports as only a hobby. But in your generation now I am seeing a shift towards taking sports more seriously and various sports are becoming popular and getting support and funding.
No doubt we will see Indian dominance in more sports apart from cricket in the years to come!