Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

SPORTS

Hockey was brought to India by the British army and the game flourished in the barracks. The suitable climatic conditions in India and the supple body movement, which was the hallmark of the game, made the Indians to quickly adapt to the game. At the Inter- national level, hockey became more organised with the birth of the Federation Internationale De Hockey (FIH) on 7th January, 1924. The seven founder member-nations - France, Hungary, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria and the erstwhile Czechoslovakia - decided to set up an international body to serve the interest of hockey. Hockey had been removed from the 1924 Olympics and subsequently reinstated in the 1928 Olympics, thanks to the efforts of the FIH. By the time the game was brought to India, it was popular in different parts of the world under different names. In Ireland it was called as Baire or Burly, in Scotland as Shinty, in England and Wales as Bandy, and in France as Hocquet. The major international tournaments now include the World Cup, the Champion’s Trophy and the Inter-Continental Cup. Though the Beighton Cup Hockey Tournament was introduced in 1895 and the Aga Khan Hockey Tournament in 1896, hockey in India developed as an organised sport with the formation of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) on 7th November, 1925 at Gwal- ior. Punjab, Rajputana, Delhi, Sindh, Western India, Uttar Pradesh and the Army Sports Control Board became the initial members and the IHF began to grow with every passing year. Today, the IHF is the apex body for the control of hockey and responsible for the de- velopment of the game throughout the country. India first participated in an Olympic hockey event in the 1928 Amsterdam Games and straightaway came out with flying colours by winning the gold medal with Jaipal Singh as the captain of the team. India subsequently dominated the game for over three dec- ades. This was the ‘golden age’ of Indian hockey. In the eight Olympic Games from 1928 to 1964, the Indians won the gold seven times including six consecutive victories from 1928 to 1956. In the 1960 Rome Olympics, India lost the gold to Pakistan, but regained the same in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. India again had to wait till 1980 to win a gold in the Moscow Olympics, which was boy- cotted by some leading nations of the world. At the last Olympics in Barcelona in 1992, India finished a poor seventh. Though India has been finishing among the top three in the Asian Games, claiming the gold once at the 1966 Bangkok Asiad, its international performance, especially of late, has left a lot to be desired. India has won the World Cup only once, in 1975, at Kuala Lumpur. Even as efforts are on to revive Indian hockey at the interna- tional level, the game continues to enjoy a lot of popularity at the domestic level and is commonly played from the school stage itself. A number of tournaments are held at various levels in different parts of the country throughout the year. Apart from the Beighton Cup and the Aga Khan hockey tournaments, the other major events in the hockey calendar of the country include the Scindia Gold Cup, which was started in 1922, the Bombay Gold Cup, the DCM Cup (1945), the Obaidullah Gold Cup (1931), Nehru Hockey Tourna- ment (1964), Modi Memorial Gold Cup and the Murugappa Cup. Started in 1928 by the Indian Hockey Federation, the Ran- gaswamy Cup is the symbol of national supremacy. Till 1944, it was conducted on a biennial basis, after which it became an annual affair. The Cup is named after a former editor of The Hindu who

GYMNASTICS

An ancient sport, Gymnastics, was a part of the curriculum in ancient Greece. However, it is believed that much before the Greeks gave the sport to the world, the Chi- nese were practising a highly organised form of mass sport. The Persians later adopted a

somewhat similar exercise. India had its own version of the sport in Mallakhamb which flourished in the 12th century. Attempts are now being made to revive Mallakhamb, the art of performing exercises round a wooden pole. The first modern gymnasium was established in Berlin in 1811 by Johann Jahn.Though the game became popular with the Ger- mans and Swedes, the rules to make the sport competitive were defined only late in the nineteenth century. The sport also gained in popularity in the rest of Europe and the USA. The sport has been on the Olympic agenda since 1896 and made its debut in the Asian Games at Teheran in 1974. The first national gymnastics championships were held in 1958 and India made its first international appearance at the world cham- pionships at Ljublana (former Yugoslavia) in 1970. Though Chi- nese, Japanese and South Korean gymnasts have been ruling the Asian roost, Indian gymnasts are still to make a mark in the international arena. Arjuna Awards : Shyam Lai, Montu Debnath, Sunitha Sharma and Krupali Patel.

HANDBALL

A combination of football and basketball, the game involves propelling a round ball with the hands and scoring a goal by throwing the ball over a goalline between two posts and a crossbar like in hockey or football, but much smaller in dimension.

Devised as an indoor sport to be played on a marked court, the origins of the game are attributed to Denmark around 1895. It de- veloped in the beginning o f the 20th century and was introduced in the 1936 Berlin Olympics as an outdoor 11-a-side game. It was dropped and re-introduced in the 1972 Munich Olympics as an in- door sport with seven-a-side and five substitutes. It was introduced in the Asian Games as an event only for men in the 1982 Delhi Asaid. In India it is played by men and women more as an outdoor sport.

HOCKEY

A very popular game the world over, hockey is perhaps one of the oldest games in the his- tory of mankind. Though the exact origins are not traceable, there is evidence that the an- cient Persians loved to chase a ball with carved sticks. The Greeks borrowed this concept from the Persians and passed it over to the Romans. It is also believed that the

Red Indians of America played a form of hockey. The Victorians of 1875, however can be credited with originating the present form of organised hockey and adopting some of its laws.