On the 1952 Helsinki Video games, wrestler KD Jadhav received India’s first post-independence particular person medal, a bronze.It was the primary event when the hockey workforce’s medal had firm. However what hockey stored ready for, since profitable its first medal on 26th Could 1928, was an Indian ‘workforce’ from one other sport to hitch it as an Olympic medal winner.
That wait ended after 96 years on July 30th 2024, on the Paris Video games when the capturing duo of Manu Bhaker and Sarabjot Singh turned the primary Indian ‘workforce’ aside from hockey to win an Olympic medal.
“Sone pe suhaga” is how hockey legend and three-time Olympic medallist Harbinder Singh reacted in shock when Timesofindia.com reached out to him over the telephone for his response on the distinctive parallel of Manu and Sarabjot’s bronze-medal win. The Indians defeated their South Korean opponents, Oh Ye Jin and Wonho Lee, 16-10 on Tuesday within the third-place playoff within the10m air pistol blended workforce occasion.
It was Manu’s second medal of the Video games, after she opened India’s account in Paris with a bronze within the ladies’s 10m air pistol particular person occasion.
“These two younger children have completed properly. Good for hockey to have firm now with one other workforce, as you identified. It by no means struck me,” he added.
“It nonetheless offers me goosebumps once I consider profitable the gold medal by beating Pakistan within the (Tokyo) 1964 ultimate, after we had misplaced to them within the ultimate of the (Rome) 1960 Olympics,” Harbinder recalled. “I bear in mind we landed on the Palam airport in Delhi and your complete airport was filled with followers who had come to welcome us.”
Speaking about similarities to hockey’s 96-year look ahead to an Indian ‘workforce’ from one other sport to win an Olympic medal, it took 44 years after KD Jadhav’s 1952 bronze to have one other particular person Olympic medal winner from India. Tennis legend Leander Paes ended that wait together with his males’s singles bronze at Atlanta 1996.
It took India 100 years to have a girl win an Olympic medal, a historic feat achieved by weightlifter Karnam Malleswari, who received a bronze on the Sydney Olympics in 2000. She waited 12 years for firm within the type of badminton nice Saina Nehwal and boxing legend Mary Kom as the following ladies Olympic medal winners from India. Each received bronze medals on the 2012 London Video games.
Rifle shooter Abhinav Bindra‘s particular person gold at Beijing in 2008 was India’s first in 108 years of the nation’s Olympic historical past at the moment. He was joined by javelin-thrower Neeraj Chopra 13 years later together with his gold in Tokyo.
Hockey needed to look ahead to 41 years, after its 1980 Moscow gold, to return to the Olympic podium. The bronze on the Tokyo Video games in 2021 broke that jinx.
Neeraj’s javelin gold in Tokyo three years in the past stays India’s first athletics medal put up independence. British-Indian runner Norman Pritchard received two silver medals, that are additionally credited to India, on the 1900 Paris Video games.
Pritchard’s medals waited the longest, 121 years, for the corporate.
