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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
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
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
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