At the 1952 Helsinki Games, wrestler KD Jadhav won India’s first post-independence individual medal, a bronze.It was the first occasion when the hockey team’s medal had company. But what hockey kept waiting for, since winning its first medal on 26th May 1928, was an Indian ‘team’ from another sport to join it as an Olympic medal winner.
That wait ended after 96 years on July 30th 2024, at the Paris Games when the shooting duo of Manu Bhaker and Sarabjot Singh became the first Indian ‘team’ apart from hockey to win an Olympic medal.
“Sone pe suhaga” is how hockey legend and three-time Olympic medallist Harbinder Singh reacted in surprise when Timesofindia.com reached out to him over the phone for his reaction on the unique 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 in the third-place playoff in the10m air pistol mixed team event.
It was Manu’s second medal of the Games, after she opened India’s account in Paris with a bronze in the women’s 10m air pistol individual event.
“These two young kids have done well. Good for hockey to have company now with another team, as you pointed out. It never struck me,” he added.
“It still gives me goosebumps when I think of winning the gold medal by beating Pakistan in the (Tokyo) 1964 final, after we had lost to them in the final of the (Rome) 1960 Olympics,” Harbinder recalled. “I remember we landed at the Palam airport in Delhi and the entire airport was packed with fans who had come to welcome us.”
Talking about similarities to hockey’s 96-year wait for an Indian ‘team’ from another sport to win an Olympic medal, it took 44 years after KD Jadhav’s 1952 bronze to have another individual Olympic medal winner from India. Tennis legend Leander Paes ended that wait with his men’s singles bronze at Atlanta 1996.
It took India 100 years to have a woman win an Olympic medal, a historic feat achieved by weightlifter Karnam Malleswari, who won a bronze at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. She waited 12 years for company in the form of badminton great Saina Nehwal and boxing legend Mary Kom as the next women Olympic medal winners from India. Both won bronze medals at the 2012 London Games.
Rifle shooter Abhinav Bindra‘s individual gold at Beijing in 2008 was India’s first in 108 years of the country’s Olympic history at that time. He was joined by javelin-thrower Neeraj Chopra 13 years later with his gold in Tokyo.
Hockey had to wait for 41 years, after its 1980 Moscow gold, to return to the Olympic podium. The bronze at the Tokyo Games in 2021 broke that jinx.
Neeraj’s javelin gold in Tokyo three years ago remains India’s first athletics medal post independence. British-Indian runner Norman Pritchard won two silver medals, which are also credited to India, at the 1900 Paris Games.
Pritchard’s medals waited the longest, 121 years, for the company.
