For six consecutive Olympic Video games, 1928 to 1956 India completed because the gold medallist with an unbeaten run spanning all these editions.
Main that run was none apart from Main Dhyan Chand, fondly referred to as ‘Dadda’ by his followers now. He was a part of India’s champion group of the 1928, 1932 and 1936 Olympics.
Whereas there are various books and hockey literature that features tales of the times when Dhyan Chand was once the centre of attraction wherever he traveled to play, it is uncommon to discover a video interview of the hockey wizard.
Due to Prasar Bharati Archives, one such video interview, when Dhyan Chand visited the Lucknow Doordarshan Kendra alongside together with his son and 1975 World Cup winner, Ashok Kumar, for an interview.
Additionally seen sitting apart from Dhyan Chand are Ashok’s teammates Mehbood Khan and Aslam Sher Khan.
Talking within the quick clip of the interview, Dhyan Chand describes how photographers in the course of the group’s overseas excursions used to click on footage of the Indian gamers practising, which have been later used as a tutorial to assist younger children be taught hockey.
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Uncommon Interview of Main Dhyan Chand | Hockey Participant | Olympian
“There isn’t a doubt that overseas international locations have discovered they’ve discovered from India,” stated Dhyan Chand within the interview
“I observed throughout our days, once we used to go to the bottom for observe in international locations like Holland and Germany, their tv crew and photographers shot us in gradual movement and quick movement. However we by no means bothered as we have been gamers. Nevertheless, they used to seize the secrets and techniques of our play to coach their very own gamers,” he added.
Dhyan Chand, who captained India’s 1936 Olympics group, stated that after he had retired in 1948 however stored travelling with numerous Indian groups, he noticed a proof of that in Germany.
“I noticed this in 1963 in Berlin, that they have been exhibiting these pictures to their children on a display screen and used to inform them in regards to the place of palms, ft, head; when you must dribble the ball, the place your head needs to be, and so forth,” stated the legend who served the Indian Military and died on the age of 74 on December 3, 1979.
“They’ve skilled so exhausting utilizing all that (footage of Indian gamers coaching), that they’ve now began difficult India,” he stated within the interview, the date of which couldn’t be ascertained.
“I’ve observed currently that they’ve began dribbling the ball extra now, relatively than simply hitting. However they nonetheless reward us, saying ‘nobody can play hockey like India’,” he concluded.
India’s golden run in hockey prolonged to eight Olympic gold medals, the final of which got here in 1980.
Forty-one years after that, India returned to the Olympic podium on the Tokyo Video games in 2021 with a bronze medal and gained one other bronze on the Paris Olympics earlier this 12 months.
India’s whole Olympic medals tally in males’s hockey stands at eight gold, 1 silver, four bronze.
