Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

SPORTS

Henry Rebello, a self-coached ‘triple jump’ ace, was unfortu- nately denied a gold in the 1948 London Olympics. Rebello, who had set a new national mark of 50 feet and two inches and had automati- cally qualified for the Olympics, had just before the Games proved that he could stretch his jump up to 52 feet. However, in the Olympic Games, after having qualified easily in the preliminaries, Rebello was disturbed as he was about to take his jump in the final and asked to wait till a victory ceremony was completed. Unaccus- tomed to the cold and windy conditions, he ran into all sorts of problems and when he finally took his turn collapsed on the pit with writhing pain as he had pulled a hamstring muscle and had to be carried away on a stretcher. With the formation of the Indian Olympic Association, national and state championships were held on a biennial basis, but Indian athletics entered a new chapter with the formation of the Amateur Athletics Federation of India at Bangalore in 1946 with Prof. Guru Dutt Sondhi as the first president and N. Ahmed as the first secretary. With the AAFI, taking over the promotion of athletics, the national championship was converted into an annual affair from 1949. The first athletics coaching camp was organised at Simla in 1950 and the Indian contingent for the first Asian Games in New Delhi in 1951 comprised 49 members, who finished with a 10-gold medal haul. The major contribution of India to the international athletics movement is the formation of the Asian Games Federa- tion and the launching of the first Asian Games in Independent India. This was largely due to the result of the untiring efforts of an inspired Prof. G.D. Sondhi, who left no stone unturned to make his project a successful one. The Asian Games Federation was first formed with Maharaja Yadavendra Singh of Patiala as the presi- dent and Prof. Sondhi as the secretary-cum-treasurer. The Asian Games has now become a major sporting extravaganza among the Asian nations on a once-in-four-year basis with the next sched- uled in Hiroshima, Japan in Oct. 1994. India also hosted the Asian Games in New Delhi for the second time in 1982. The other movements in the development of Indian athletics include the Rajkumari Amrit Kaur coaching scheme, which was started in a modest way at the National Stadium, New Delhi in 1952 and the starting of the National Institute of Sports at Patiala in 1961 for training coaches in various disciplines of sporting activity. The government also set up advisory bodies in the form of the All India Council of Sports and the SNIPES Board. With the NIS

who was in the limelight during the 1960s and earned the sobriquet of the ‘Flying Sikh’. The other notable Indian athletes include: Mohinder Singh, Labh Singh, Leslie Boosey and his son Derek Boosey, who migrated to England and represented the United King- dom in the Mexico Olympics, Mohinder Singh Gill (trained in the United States and won the triple jump gold in the 1970 Bangkok Asian Games, followed by a silver in the 1974 Asiad at Teheran), Gurubachan Singh Randwa (a reputed decathlete), Parduman Singh, Lavy Pinto, Kenneth Powell, Edward Sequira, Suresh Babu, Praveen Kumar, Yohannan, Sohan Singh, Zora Singh, P.T. Usha, M.D. Valasamma, Shiny Wilson, Ashwini Nachappa, Geeta Zut- shi, Sunita Godara, Bahadur Singh and Chand Ram . Apart from the various athletic meets from the school, district, state to national levels, the following athletic meets are regularly held: the inter-state athletics meet for seniors(men and women), the inter-state athletics meet for juniors (boys and girls), the all- India Open athletics meet and the inter-zone athletics meet for jun- iors. In the inter-state athletics meet, the athletes have to repre- sent their respective states, whereas in the open athletics meet they have the option of representing the other affiliated units like the sports control boards of public sector and private sector organi- sations. Arjuna Awards: Gurubachan Singh Randhawa, Tarlok Singh, Stephie D’Souza, Makhan Singh, K.L Powell, Ajmer Singh, B.S. Bawa, Praveen Kumar, Bhim Singh, Joginder Singh, Manjit Walia, Harnak Singh, M.S. Gill, Edward Sequira, V.S. Chauhan, Ram Singh, T.C. Yohannan, Shivnath Singh, Anusuya Bai, Bahadur Singh, Geeta Zutshi, Suresh Babu, Angel Mary Joseph, R. Gnansekaran, Gopal Saini, Sabir Ali, Charles Borromeo, Chand Ram, Suresh Yadav, M.D. Valasamma, P.T. Usha, Rajkumar, Shiny Wilson, R.S. Bal, Adille Sumariwala, Asha Agarwal, Suman Rawat, Balwinder Singh, Vandana Rao, Bagicha Singh, Vandana Shanbagh, Ashwini Nachappa and Mercy Kuttan.

Dronacharya award (for coaches): O.M. Nambiar

National Records MEN

Event

Athletics

Timing

Year

100 m

K.Natarajan

10.3 sec

1973

200 m

Milka Singh

20.7 sec

1960

spreading its activities to cover the various zones of the coun- try and being redesignated as the Sports Authority of India, the development and promotion of sports is now vested with this institution in consultation with the various national fed- erations. While the All India Council of Sports was dis- solved, the SNIPES Board was merged with the Sports Au- thority of India during 1988/89. While P.T. Usha became a household name during the 1980s because of her exploits in the Asian and Olympic Games, it was Milkha Singh

400 m

Milka Singh

45.6 sec

1960

800 m

Sriram Singh

105.77 sec.

1976

1500 m

Bahadur Prasad

121.98 sec

1990

5,000 m

Raj Kumar

826.40 sec

1962

10,000 m

Hari Chand

1728.72 sec

1976

110 hurdles

G.S. Randhawa

14.0 sec

1969

400 hurdles

K.S. B. Subramaniam 51.6 sec

1981

3,000 steeple

Gopal Saini

510.88 sec

1981

Long jump

T.C. Yohanan

8.07 m

1974

High jump

Chandra Pal

2.17 m

1993

Triple jump

M.S. Gill

16.79 m

1971

Pole vault

Vijay Pal Singh

5.10 m

1978

Shot put

K. Iqbal Singh

18.77 m

1988

Discus

Sakhi Singh

57.70 m

1989

Javelin

Satbir Singh

73.62 m

1992