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SPORTS
Eternal India
encyclopedia
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.
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
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