Hockey legend Balbir Singh, who passed away in Chandigarh at the age of 95, was a star with few peers. He breathed his last at about 6.30 am on Monday morning at Fortis Hospital in Mohali.
Winning independent India’s first gold medal and singing the new National Anthem was an exhilarating experience for him at the London Olympics in 1948.
In an interview with this website in 2012, the legend, who won India three Olympic gold medals, had described his feelings on winning the free nation’s first Olympic gold medal in these words:
“There are many, many such moments from the Olympics that are etched in my memory. But I would like to mention the moment when we won the final match against Great Britain in the 1948 London Olympics. It was for the first time that our Tricolour fluttered at the top and our National Anthem sounded sweet. It was a spectacular scene worth remembering repeatedly. India had just got independence, and we were playing under our own National Flag for the first time,’’ the legendary former centre forward, who was born at Sansarpur village near Jalandhar on October 10, 1924, had said.
With him, India went on to win gold medals in the next two Olympics in 1952 and 1956 to complete independent India’s “Golden Hat-Trick.”
The Vancouver-based Balbir Singh, whose record of goals – three out of three goals in the semi-final and five out of six goals in the final – in the 1948 London Olympics still stands, says India can become the world champion again if they go about it methodically.
Isn’t he is hoping against hope given India’s poor record in the world hockey since the late 1970s? “The world survives on hope,” he says.
But the present mess in Indian hockey, he says, is due to the presence of two national level hockey bodies.
The greatest living Indian hockey star, who has just been included in the list of 16 all-time Olympians, feels that popularity of cricket is definitely one of the reasons for the decline in hockey.
“Of course,’’ he says when asked pointedly whether cricket is behind the decline in the popularity of hockey in India.
When he is asked to name top five Indian players of all time, Balbir Singh says laughing, “India has produced many players of calibre. It can be debated and decided only by the seasoned hockey writers…”
But the hockey wizard Dhyan Chand was his inspiration to take up hockey, he says.
“I was in the eighth grade when I saw in some news real a picture of Dhyan Chand swinging back after scoring a goal in the Berlin Olympics. That picture is still fresh in memory. After seeing his pose, I thought to myself: can I also become another Dhyan Chand. That’s was the trigger for me. The legend was, like me, also played as centre-forward,’’ says Balbir Singh who will be in London for the Olympics to see India’s performance. (This article first appeared in our sister website on July 29, 2012, just before the 2012 London Olympics)
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