Punjab has virtually dribbled the country to glory. The State, that produced hockey stalwarts like Balbir Singh Senior, Pargat Singh, Surinder Singh Sodhi, and others broke four decades old jinx with 11 of its players achieving the country’s Olympic medal goal by scoring a bronze.
Indian hockey team, with several players from Punjab, has been unbeaten in ‘field hockey’ winning six successive gold medals between 1928 and 1956. Balbir Singh Dosanjh, popularly known as ‘Balbir Singh Senior’, was among the few Olympic medallists scoring a hat-trick, along with Major Dhayan Chand.
Hailing from a village in Jalandhar district, Balbir Singh was the Gold medal winning Indian hockey team member in three consecutive Summer Olympic Games — 1948 London, 1952 Helsinki, and 1956 Melbourne.
Of the total 35 medals bagged by the Indian athletes and players till 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, 12 were won in field hockey, of which 11 were won between 1928 and 1980. It was after 41-year-long drought that the Indian hockey team made a resounding comeback in field hockey winning a Bronze medal with 11 players hailing from Punjab — highest ever by any State.
And why not! The State had put in strenuous efforts, running that extra mile keeping pace with the changing times to revive the lost glory of India’s national game, and the game it was nice dominating on the global level.
“Hockey used to be a game of skill and artistry when it was played on the grass. But, the synthetic grounds added pace to the game. As we did not have astroturfs or carbon-fibre sticks to adapt to the changes in the game, it lost its sheen,” said Pargat Singh, a legendary Indian hockey player, who had participated in 1988, 1992, and 1996 Olympics but failed to make it to the podium.
With his efforts as Punjab’s sports director, Punjab made a beginning to nip the talent in the bud and nurturing the same at an earlier stage. And the hard work paid off.
The Bronze medal winning hockey squad has 11 players were from Punjab including team captain Manpreet Singh, vice-captain Harmanpreet Singh, Rupinderpal Singh, Simranjeet Singh, Dilpreet Singh, Mandeep Singh, Gurjant Singh, Hardik Singh, Samsher Singh, Varun Kumar and Krishan Pathak.
Of these, three — Captain Manpreet Singh, Mandeep Singh and Varun Kumar — all hail from Mithapur in Jalandhar — which is renowned as the “home for hockey players” since post-Independence.
Mithapur has the repute of having produced six Olympic greats, including the three players part of the current team. Other than them, Swarup Singh who participated in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, Kulwant Singh from the 1972 Olympics, and Pargat Singh — all received training in Mithapur.
The women hockey team, that won hearts by its performance finishing fourth, also has two players — Gurjit Kaur and Reena Khokhar — from Punjab.
Earlier, the Gold medal winning hockey team members from Punjab were Gurmit Singh Kular, Gurcharan Singh Garewal, Gurdev Singh Kular, Udham Singh Kular, Bakshish Singh, Charanjit Singh, Jaswant Singh, Joginder Singh, Prithipal Singh, among others.
With all the glory the Punjab’s hockey players brought to the nation and the state, it has also produced several renowned athletes and players. However, despite being the best and giving their top-notch performance, they failed to convert it into medals.
The ‘Flying Sikh’ Milkha Singh, who represented India in the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, and the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, could not win a medal, despite dominating the Asian Games and Commonwealth games.
Died recently due to post-COVID complications, Milkha Singh was, till date, the only athlete to win gold at 400 metres at the Asian Games as well as the Commonwealth Games. Besides, he also won gold medals in the 1958 and 1962 Asian Games.
However, in 1960 Rome Olympics, he missed the medal and missed the podium by 0.1 seconds — an unforgettable heartache that he carried for the rest of his life. The 400-metres final race, for which Milkha Singh was best remembered, is his fourth-place finish at the 1960 Games, which he had entered as one of the favourites. He led the race till the 200m mark before easing off, allowing others to pass him.
Even as various records were broken in the race, which required a photo-finish and saw American Otis Davis being declared the winner by one-hundredth of a second over German Carl Kaufmann. His fourth-place time of 45.73 seconds was the Indian national record for almost 40 years, but wasn’t enough to secure a medal.
In 1964 Tokyo Olympics, another renowned athlete of those times, Gurbachan Singh Randhawa also missed the medal by a whisker. Hurdler Randhawa, the track and field legend, also finished fifth in 1964 Tokyo Olympics in 110 meter hurdles with a timing of 14.07 seconds.
Another Punjabi, from Machhiwara, an army man Gurcharan Singh made it to the quarter final in the light heavyweight division during 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney but lost due to table umpiring and could not make it to the semifinals, otherwise that could have been the country’s first individual medal. He had also competed at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics.
This year, in the 124-player Indian contingent, 20 players are from Punjab. But only the hockey players could make their dreams come true.
Not staying behind is the daughter of Punjab, Kamalpreet Kaur — a discus thrower who finished sixth in the sporting extravaganza that concluded on Sunday. Despite having been a first-timer, Kamalpreet finished second in the qualification round with a throw of 64 metres, but finished at the sixth place in the finals, hurling the throw 63.70 m. In her early 20s, Kamalpreet hails from Kabarwala village in Sri Muktsar Sahibdistrict.
Another Moga lad, shot-putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor, registered only one legal throw of 19.99 metres in qualifying and failed to reach the final round. Holding an outdoor national record of 21.49m, he competed with a heavily-bandaged shoulder at the Olympics.
