By Irineu Gonsalves.

WHEN P.T.USHA finished fourth in Los Angeles, celebrity status was instantly conferred on her, but how many Indians know of Norman Pritchard – the only athlete to win a silver medal, any medal, for the country?

Some say he was an Anglo-Indian from Calcutta, while some others insist he was English – which could be why his story has gone unsung. But his feat is there for all to see.

In Olympics, Pritchard finished second to American Alvin Kraenzlein in the 200m hurdles. Pritchard bagged silver, finishing second to another American John Walter Tewksbury in the 200m, completing the race in 22.8 seconds to the American’s 22.2.

Merwyn Sutton, the first Indian to reach the semi-final stages, took part in the 100m hurdles at the 1932 Los Angeles Games.

Jim Vickers (110m hurdles; London, 1948) won the fourth heat of the first round in 14.7 seconds: the first Indian to ever win a heat. He came fourth in the second semi-final.

A legend called Henry Rebello also took part in the 1948 Games. His speciality was the triple jump. A tall and strong Anglo-Indian Rebello had leapt 50 feet 2 inches at the nationals earlier that year, the world record at that being 52 feet 6 inches.

A victory ceremony interrupted Rebello just as he was preparing to take his jump. When the competition resumed, he resumed without warming up. Upon hitting the board, he heard a snap, and went sprawling: it was his own hamstring. His dream, and the nation’s, went up in smoke. Arne Ahman of Sweden won the event with a jump of 50 feet 6¼ inches; Rebello had cleared 52 feet 1½ inches just days earlier.

Flying Sikh
THE ETERNAL star of the 1960 Games was the ‘flying Sikh’, Milkha Singh; unarguably the best track and field athlete India has ever produced. In the previous Olympics, Milkha was eliminated after the heats in both the 200 and 400m, and took it up as a challenge. Practicing on his own, he served notice of his class by winning both the 200 and 400m in the 1958 Asian Games and in the 400m at the Commonwealth Games in Cardiff.

He made it quite easily to the final of the 400m in the 1960 Games. Milkha stood fourth in 45.6 seconds, breaking the Olympic record. Milkha competed again in 1964, as a member of the 4x400m relay quartet which finished fourth in the heats and was eliminated.

The Tokyo Games undoubtedly belonged to Gurbachan Singh Randhawa, a decathlete who switched to the 110m hurdles. Randhawa nearly outshone Milkha. He finished fifth in a time of 14.0 seconds.

There was a lull after this, till the Montreal Games in which Shivnath Singh finished 11 th in the marathon. In Sriram Singh, a new star was born. Before going to Montreal, Sriram had never run the 800m under 1:47, he had never run on a tartan track, and never run against world-class runners. He had come to Montreal straight from India, with no warm-up meets at all.

Yet, in the heats Sriram ran second to Rick Wohlhuter in 1:45.86, and followed it up with a semi-final run of 1:46.42 the next day, finishing just behind Alberto Juantorena, Ivo Van Damme and Steve Ovett. In the finals Sriram was actually leading the race just after the first lap, before ending up seventh at 1:45.75.

The Eighties
THE EIGHTIES belonged to the women, whose dominance was best symbolized by sprint queen P T Usha. A 100 and 200m sprinter in her early days, Usha’s first international exposure was at the Moscow Games. In the 1982 Asiad, Usha won silver in the 200m. Realizing that her endurance made 400m hurdles easy, Usha practiced for LA.

She made it quite easily to the finals. Usha, despite her finishing kick, lost out on the bronze to Cristina Cojocaru of Romania by .01 seconds.

The women’s relay team, comprising M D Valsamma, Vandana Rao, Shiny Abraham and P T Usha powered their way to the final of the 4x400m relay, where they came seventh. This is the Indian story on the tracks from Pritchard onwards.

Hockey trail
BY ALL ACCOUNTS, in no game in the Olympics has India’s dominance been so complete as in hockey. The first exposure to international matches was against New Zealand, in 1926. Yet only two years later, the national (rather, colonial) team bagged the gold in the Amsterdam Olympics led by the legendary Dhyan Chand.

Compared to nine the previous time, only three nations participated in the 1932 LA fixture. Needless to say, India was among them.

While the US was demolished 24-1, Japan lost 11-1. In the match against the US, Roop Singh scored 10 goals, while brother Dhyan Chand, totted up eight.

Adolf Hitler thought he would use the 1936 Berlin Olympics to prove his theory of Aryan supremacy. He nearly did, too, but for Jesse Owens and the Indian hockey team. The final between India and Germany, watched by the Fuhrer himself, seemed evenly poised at half-time, with the Germans trailing 0-1. That was before Dhyan Chand struck. Playing barefoot, the wizard rammed in six goals, and we won 8-1.

Then came the 1948 Olympics. Earlier, Britain had dexterously avoided playing against its colony, but were forced to meet the hockey giants in the final after having advanced to that stage without giving up a goal. The outcome was eloquent: India won 4-0.

By the time the Helsinki Games came on, other nations had arrived on the hockey scene, notable among them being Holland, Britain and Pakistan. But the Indian held on tenaciously to their title as world-beaters, defeating Holland 6-1 in the final. A police inspector from Punjab, Balbir Singh, scored 9 of India’s 13 goals.

Pakistan, meanwhile, had grown in strength to challenge India’s unquestionable supremacy in the 1956 Melboune final, though ultimately they had to make do with silver. It was a closely fought match, and its only goal came off a short corner hit by Randhir Singh in the second half.

The Rome fixture saw India losing its first Olympic match – unfortunately, it was in the final, against Pakistan. The score was an exact reversal of that in the previous final, and Indian hegemony over the hockey turf had finally ended.

The loss led to a severe introspection, and the 1964 Tokyo match was awaited with bated breath. India was made to struggle on its way to the finals – surviving a 1-1 scare from both Germany and Spain – where it met Pakistan. Mohinder Lal scored the only goal of the match to enable India to regain the crown.

India’s reign was interrupted yet again, this time forever it seems. The Mexico fixture saw the champions sliding to third place, defeating Germany 2-1. And by the same margin defeated Holland in 1972 to retain the tertiary position, while Germany finished on top of the pile.

When the Montreal Games came around, in 1976, the Indians’ morale had hit an all-time low. Teams like New Zealand, Australia and Holland had more to show for themselves than ever before. The former champion was bundled out of the tourney, beating Malaysia 2-0 for the seventh position.

The US-led boycott decimated India’s opposition in 1980. India won gold beating Spain. After 1980, India never won even bronze medal in hockey. At Los Angeles, even as the Pakistanis were fighting for the top slot, which they eventually won, beating Germany 2-1, India found the fifth position.

Sudden death
INDIA HAS NO memorable pages in the Olympic history books. The country’s Olympic legacy talks of heartbreak rather than hope. Milkha Singh, missing a bronze by a whisker, P T Usha missing bronze and immortality by one-hundredth of a second before Leander Paes won a bronze medal in Tennis at Atlanta, Karnam Malleswari finally took the bronze in the women’s weightlifting event at Sydney 2000.

Indian Hopes
THIS TIME though, Indian shooters, the hockey team, the wrestling and boxing squads promise some glory, though not gold. Then there is long jumper Anju Bobby George, who has given Indians reason to hope. Weightlifter Kunjurani Devi is determined to be among the medals after she was left out of the Indian squad for Sydney. The hockey team can spring a surprise. Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi can get a medal.

Indian judokas, though low profile, have always come achingly close to a medal. Akram Shah will be looking for that elusive medal in his discipline, while pugilists who have traded punches with the best in the world may prove that it is not glove’s labour lost this time around. All the best, India. We dare to dream.

Back