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Eternal India
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with the team comprising M. Salem, S.M. Jacob, L.S. Deane and
A.A. Fayzee.
In the Asian Games at Bangkok, the Indian pair of V.Dhawan
and S.P. Mishra won a bronze medal. This was repeated by Shyam
Minotra and Chiradip Mukherjea in the 1978 Asiad again at
Bangkok. Sumant Mishra emerged as the first National Champion
defeating Manmohan in 1946 at Calcutta, where the event was
inaugurated. Zeeshan Ali at 16 in 1987 became the youngest player
to win the National Championship.
Arjuna Awards:
Ramanathan Krishnan, Naresh Kumar, Mankad,
Premjit Lai, Jaideep Mukherjea,Vijay Amrithraj, Nirupama, Ra-
mesh Krishnan, Anand Amrithraj and Leandar Paes.
TRIATHLON
It has been the constant endeavor of man-
kind to evolve higher levels of sporting chal-
lenge. Out of this quest has evolved the new
sport of triathlon, comprising sea swimming,
cycling, and running. A relatively new sport,
triathlon took an organised form in India with
the formation of the Indian Triathlon Federa-
tion and the conduct of the first national triathlon championships on
23rd and 24th February, 1991 in Madras.
In this short span of three years, the Indian triathletes, espe-
cially the girls, have done the country proud. V.T. Anusuya of
Karnataka became the first Indian to win an international medal by
claiming the bronze in the under 20 category of the first Asian tri-
athlon championships held in Japan on 4th October, 1992.
C.Amudha of Tamil Nadu has gone one step better by winning the
gold in the second Asian triathlon championships held in July, 1993
in China.
Affiliated to the International Triathlon Union, the Indian Tri-
athlon Federation, headed by Mr.N.Ramachandran as president
and Mr.Rakesh Gupta as secretary since inception, has been
regularly holding the national championships on an annual basis.
Events are held under sub-junior, junior (boys and girls) and senior
(men and women) categories. The events are held for both indi-
viduals and teams. While events under all categories were con-
ducted simultaneously in the first two years, in the third year, the
national sub-junior and junior championships were held at
Kurukshetra on 22nd October 1992 and the senior national champi-
onship held at Madras on 14th March, 1993.
A three-member Indian women’s team comprising V.T. Anu-
suya (Karnataka), Archana Patel (Gujarat) and Khushanaaz A.
Subedar (Maharashtra) with Mr.N. Ramachandran as the head of
the delegation participated in the 1992 world triathlon champion-
ships held at Muskoka, Canada on 12th September, 1992. Earlier
an Indian team comprising S. Karunakaran, Anusuya and Famaz
Engineer had participated in the World Triathlon championships
held at Gold Coast, Australia on 13th October, 1991.
Indian triathlon officials have also been regularly attending the
meetings of the Asian Triathlon Confederation and the Interna-
tional Triathlon Union Congress. In the fifth International Triathlon
Union Congress held at Muskoka, Canada on 9th and 10th Septem-
ber, 1992, Mr. Ramachandran was elected to the information com-
mittee of the international federation.
Distances covered in kms for three events under the various
categories:
Sea Swimming
Cycling
Running
Sub-junior
0.5
6.0
5.0
Junior
1.0
20.0
5.0
Senior
1.5
40.0
10.0
VOLLEYBALL
Introduced as mintonette, a recreational
sport for businessmen, by W.G. Morgan,
Physical Director, Springfield College of
Physical Education, Holyoke, Massachusetts,
volleyball developed as a sport only during the
First World War. Developed as an indoor
sport, the game did not immediately catch the
imagination of the American masses. Thanks to the efforts of the
YMCA movement, the game spread to different countries and rap-
idly became popular in Eastern Europe, Japan, Brazil, Mexico and
many other nations. Deriving the name from the fact that the
players volley the ball across the net, the game became a popular
recreational sport among soldiers during the First and Second
World Wars. The International Volleyball Federation (now known
as the FIVB, Federation of International Volleyball) was formed
on 20th April 1947 by 14 nations to make volleyball popular as an
international sport. Mr. Paul Libard of France was the first presi-
dent and the first world championships were held in 1949 at Prague,
capital of erstwhile Czechoslovakia.
Volleyball was brought to India in the 1920s, as an exciting,
highly competitive team sport, wherein each player dominates in
his own court without bodily contact to create a difficult situation
for the opponents, by J.H. Gray of the YMCA. Though volleyball,
like basketball, was devised as an indoor sport by the Americans,
in India it became a very popular outdoor activity. The low cost of
the game also made it adaptable in rural settings. Efforts were
made in the 1950s to make the game an organised competitive sport
in the country. The game, in fact, caught on in the coastal areas and
especially in the harbours, where it was played by the seamen in
the shipyards. The efforts of the dedicated to streamline the sport
bore fruit in the formation of the Volleyball Federation of India with
Mr. F.C. Arora as the first president and Mr. Basu as the general
secretary in the 1950s. The first international exposure was the
participation of an Indian team in the world championships at
Moscow in 1952. The first national championship was held in 1952
and Mysore won the title defeating Pepsu in the final. Women also
soon took to the game and the women’s event also became a part of
the national championship programme. The women made their
international debut at the 1979 Asian championships in Hong Kong.
The Volleyball Federation of India has now introduced the junior
and sub-junior national championships for boys and girls.
Volleyball, which became a part of the Asian Games movement
in 1958 at Tokyo, was introduced in the Olympics in 1964 at Tokyo.
India, which won a gold medal in the men’s event of the Asian
volleyball championships in Tokyo in 1955, also won a bronze
medal in men’s event of the 1958 Asian Games and silver in the
1962
Jakarta Asiad, again in the men’s event. In the 1982 Asiad
Indian men finished fourth and in the next Asiad-1986 at Seoul -
went one rung up the ladder by winning the bronze.
In fact, it was during the 1980s, when Mr. Sivanti Adityan was
the president of the VFI and Mr. K. Murugan the Secretary, that the