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SPORTS
Eternal India
encyclopedia
travel. Though the Egyptians are believed to
have held rowing races, it is the Chinese who
first engaged in the sport of long boat racing on
rivers and tidal waters. Even today Chinese
festivals are marked by traditional dragon boat
races. In Kerala, traditional snake boat races
are an integral part of 'Onam' celebrations.
Even in Thailand and Burma, paddle oar racing goes back to the
dawn of history. In many countries where rowing has not developed
as a competitive sport, it remains associated with religious celebra-
tions.
Rowing in its modern form originated in England and the first
race using a light craft is reported to have been held in 1715 on the
Thames River between London and Chelsea. The sport gained ’in
popularity after it was included in the Olympics in 1900.
Rowing in India was patronised by the British as early as 1835.
The first rowing club was formed in Calcutta in 1858 and the Madras
rowing club was formed in 1867. With West Bengal and Tamil Nadu
playing an important role, the Rowing Federation of India was
formed in 1976 and the first national championship was held in
West Bengal in 1977. Rowing was included in the 1982 Delhi Asian
Games. The team of G.S. Karpreetinder, Arun Naik- and D.Tomar
won a bronze medal in the coxed pairs event. India's best showing
was the gold medal in the coxed fours event in the third Asian row-
ing championships in Chandigarh in 1989 by the team comprising
Dilip Kumar, G.D. Ghorai, Jasbir Singh, V.V.R. Rao and Kumar.
In the above championships the Indian men also got silvers in
single and double sculls and a bronze in open coxed fours. Salome
Patrick also became the first Indian woman to win an international
rowing medal, when she claimed the bronze in the women's open
single sculls.
India first participated in the world championships in 1983 at
Duisburg in then West Germany.
SHOOTING
The transition of the use of the gun from a
weapon of warfare and self-defence to that of
an instrument of sport took place around the
1860s in Britain. Shooting, thereafter, rapidly
gained in popularity as a sport and was in-
cluded in the Olympic Games in 1896. It be-
came a part of the Asian Games agenda from
the 1954 Manila Asiad.
The National Rifle Association of India is the parent body for
the promotion of the sport in the country and the first national cham-
pionship was held in Delhi from November 9th to 16th in 1952.
The late Maharaja Karni Singh, Randhir Singh, Soma Dutta and
Ashok Pandit are among some of the Indians to have attained inter-
national acclaim. The late Maharaja Karni Singh became the first
ever Indian to win an Asian Games medal when he claimed the
silver in the clay pigeon (trap) event in the 1974 Teheran Asian
Games. Randhir Singh improved upon this by winning a gold medal
in the 1978 Bangkok Asiad. The late Maharaja Karni Singh had
earlier won a gold medal in the individual trap event at the 1971
Asian championships at Seoul. He won a silver in the 1975 Asian
championships at Kuala Lumpur.
While Soma Dutta became the first Indian woman to win an
Asiad medal, when she took the silver in the individual small bore
three-position event at 1986 Seoul Asiad (she also won a bronze in
the air rifle 10 metres event), Ashok Pandit claimed the gold medal
in the 1990 Commonwealth Games air rifle event at Auckland.
To Randhir Singh goes the distinction of having represented
India for nearly four decades and participating in six successive
Olympics since the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Arjuna Awards
: Late Maharaja Karni Singh, Princess
Rajyashree Kumari of Bikaner, Maheswari Kumari, Maharaja Bhim
Singh of Kota, Udyan Chinubhai, Randhir Singh, Sharad Chauhan,
Mohinder Lai, Ashok Pandit, Soma Dutta and Bhagirath Samai
SNOOKER
An off-shoot of billiards, snooker has a
forerunner in a game called ‘Pyramids’, which
was played with 15 reds initially placed in a tri-
angle with the apex red on what is now the pink
spot, but was then known as the pyramid spot.
It was on the inspiration of Colonel Sir Neville
Chamberlain in 1875 as a young subaltern with
the Devonshire Regiment at Jabalpur that other coloured balls were
added to the game. It was then played with fifteen reds, yellow ,
green, pink and black. Blue and brown were added some years later.
A first year cadet at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich
was referred to as a ‘snooker’. As Chamberlain and his compan-
ions were ‘snookers’ at the game, which they had newly devised,
they decided to call it the game of “snooker”. Interested officers in
order to settle the inevitable arguments that followed while playing
the game called a committee meeting in 1882 at Ootacamund to
agree to their own rules and thus ‘Snooker Rules’ came into exis-
tence.
John Thurston added technical innovations to the table by intro-
ducing-slate beds and rubber cushioning. The International Billiards
and Snooker Federation was formed in 1973 for organising the
World Amateur Billiards and the World Amateur Snooker Champi-
onships. The first World Amateur Snooker Championship was,
however, staged in 1963.
In India, the game became popular when Arvind Savur of Karna-
taka put India on the world snooker map for the first time by
reaching the semi-finals of the world amateur championship in 1972
at Cardiff, Wales. Savur, affectionately known as ‘Tornado fatso’
lost on the last ball of the last frame by one point to Manual Fran-
cisco of South Africa.
The highest break in the World Amateur Championship also
stands in the name of another Indian, Geet Sethi, who made the
technically highest possible break in snooker of 147 (hypothetically
this can be surpassed) at the World Amateur Championship held at
Guntur in 1985.
At the national level the record for the highest break began with
Chandra Hirjee (80), which stood for 15 years followed by Tony
Monteiro (81), Arvind Savur (88), Shyam Shroff (99) and Ratan
Badar (122).
While to Arvind Savur goes the distinction of being called the
father of Indian snooker, to Om Agrawal goes the honour of bringing
the World Amateur Championship title to India in 1984. Though
India has produced a world champion in snooker, the game has not