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Eternal India
encyclopedia
SPORTS
The record for the maximum number of baskets among men is
held by Pramod Kumar of Delhi, who scored 110 baskets in the 1985
nationals at Delhi, while Anjali Dalvi holds the record for women
with 65 baskets scored at the 1984 Kanpur nationals. India's first
international exposure was a Test series against Sri Lanka during
March/April 1980.
POLO
Considered as the king of sport,
the origins of the game can be traced
back to Persia. There is also refer-
ence to this game being played as
Sagol Kangjei in Manipur during 3100
B.C. Patronised by the erstwhile
princes of the country, especially,
Alwar, Bikaner, Bhopal, Cooch-Behar, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jodhpur,
Kashmir, Kishagarh and Patiala, the development of the modern
version of the game in India is owed to the British Army. It was in-
troduced in the 1870s by the officers of the British cavalry regiment
stationed in India. Before the intervention of the British, polo had
the patronage of the Mughals. Emperor Akbar, who himself was a
fine player, popularised the game throughout Agra, then capital city
of the Mughal regime. Akbar introduced and clarified the rules of
the game. Some court ladies were also skilled players of the game.
The game then flourished in Chitral (north-west). There are also
reports of the game being very popular between tire eighth and the
ninth centuries in Cachar and Manipur (north-east).
The Europeans in India took to the game in the middle of the
nineteenth century and the Silchar polo club started in Cachar in
1859 is perhaps the oldest polo club in the world. The Calcutta Polo
Club was inaugurated in 1862. These early clubs framed some of
the rules of the modern version, which spread to the other parts of
the country through the British Cavalry Regiments.
The Indian Polo Association was formed in 1892 and in the
initial phases, the game was played on small ponies as a result of
which the standard of the game was not so high. However after the
First World War international rules were framed and accepted by
all countries playing the game.
The contribution of Jaipur during the 1930s needs special men-
tion as it produced top quality players of rare brilliance. In 1933 the
Jaipur team established a record of winning all the open tourna-
ments in the United Kingdom. The team also had the distinction of
winning the India championship on the trot from 1930 to 1938 before
the meet was discontinued because of the II World War.
Polo was a part of the Olympic calendar from 1900 to 1936 and
thereafter dropped following the II World War. India's greatest
hour of glory was in 1957 when its team won the world champion-
ship at Deauville, France competing against some of the best expo-
nents of the sport from Argentina, USA, England, France, Mexico,
and Spain. The team comprised Captain Kishen Singh, Bijey Singh,
Rao Raja Hanut Singh and the Maharaja of Jaipur.
POWERLIFTING
An offshoot of weightlifting, powerlifting includes the deep
knee bend, the two-hand bench press and the two-hand dead lift. It
is a fairly recent sport and the Indian powerlifting Federation was
formed in February 1975. The first senior national powerlifting
championships were held in Calcutta in March
1976 and the first junior nationals also in Cal-
cutta in 1980.
India won the team championship with
five gold medals in the first Asian Powerlifting
championships at Bandung, Indonesia in 1984.
Sumita Laha won a bronze in the 1984 world champonships in the
67.5 kg category at California, while Bhanumathi Mendon also won
a bronze in the 82.5 kg category. Sumita subsequently claimed a
silver in the 1986 world meet at Hestra, Sweden. D. Sathyamurthy
and B.V. Gaud won gold medals in the 1986 junior world champion-
ships at Cochin in the 53 kg and over 125 kg categories respectively
and India finished second to the US in the team championship.
Arjuna Awards:
Subrata Dutta, P.J. Joseph.
ROLLER SKATING
An offshoot of 'ice skating', roller skating developed as a sport of
the summer. A Belgian named Merlin is credited with having in-
vented the first roller skates in 1760. However, a roller skates with
ball bearings was a development of the late 1800s.
The Roller Skating Federation of India (RSFI), affiliated to the
Federation International de Roller Skating (FIRS), was estab-
lished in 1955. A founder of the Confederation of Asian Roller
Skating or CARS, the RSFI holds the national roller skating cham-
pionships in eight age groups in three categories of events. The
event are speed, artistic and roller hockey. The speed event com-
prises two rink races and two road races, while the artistic event
includes free fancy and figure acrobatics (jumps and spins). Roller
hockey, similar to ice hockey, is played between two teams com-
prising five players each including the goalkeeper. One substitution
is allowed per team.
An international standard skating rink measures 80 metres by
40 metres with the circumference around the four conical pins being
125 mts.
Since 1989 an All India Invitational Roller Staking meet under
the name of Field Marshall K. M. Cariappa is being conducted in
Bangalore under the auspices of the Sports Lovers Club, Bangalore.
One of India's great achievements, which has earned a mention
in the Guinness Book of World Records, is that of seven-year-old
whiz kid, R. Vishwanath, who skated under a horizontal bar just six
inches above the ground. Vishwanath also went on a fund raising
spree for the Maharashtra earthquake victims by skating from
Madras to Bombay.
ROWING
The skill of rowing owes its origins to the ancient civilizations of
Egypt, Phoenicia, Greek, Rome, China and India. In those days
boats and barges were the easiest and the most economical ways of