1948 Olympics: Independent India’s 1st Team Continues Habit of Winning Men’s Hockey Gold

As World Wor II engulfed the World, after 1936 it took 12 years to organize another Olympics. By that time, India also became Independent. Ironically, it has to send its first Olympics team to the country from which it gained Independence. But, the result was no different for the Men’s Hockey team. Without Dhyan Chand and other old players, the new Indian team won the Gold medal for the 4th consecutive Olympics. 3 new Sports were added to India’s Olympic participation list.

Indian Performance in Every Olympics
History of All Sports Played at Olympics by India
Indian Medals In Olympics: When and Who Got It!!

Olympics Statistics

    Venue: London, United Kingdom
    Sports: 136 in 17 sports
    Participating Nations: 59
    Athletes Participating: 4,104 (3,714 men, 390 women)

1948 Indian contingent
Indian Statistics

    India Ranking: 22
    Flag Bearer: None
    Indian Team: 79 Athletes (No Female)
    Sports-India: 10 (Hockey, Athletics, Water Polo, Cycling, Football, Wrestling, Boxing, Swimming, Boxing, Weightlifting and Art Competitions)
    Participated in two sports: Swimming, Water Polo: Isaac Monsoor, Sachin Nag

Athletics: 8 Men, 10 Events

    Eric Prabhakar: Round 1 in Men’s 100 metres
    Henry Rebello: Round 2 in Men’s Triple Jump
    Nat Singh Somnath: Round 1 in Men’s Hammer Throw
    Baldev Singh: Round 1 in Men’s Long Jump, Men’s Decathlon
    Chhota Singh: Did not finish in Men’s Marathon
    Gurnam Singh: 18th in Men’s High Jump
    Sadhu Singh: Men’s 10 kilometres Walk, Did not finish 50 kilometres Walk
    Jim Vickers: Round 1 in Men’s 110 metres Hurdles

Art Competitions

    A. G. Chagale: Mixed Painting, Paintings
    K. S. Kulkarni: Mixed Painting, Paintings

Boxing: 7 Men, 7 events

    Rabin Bhatta: Round 2 in Men’s Flyweight
    Benoy Bose: Round 1 in Men’s Featherweight
    Robert Cranston: Round 1 in Men’s Welterweight
    Mac Joachim: Round 1 in Men’s Light-Heavyweight
    Babu Lall: Round 2 in Men’s Bantamweight
    John Nuttall: Round 2 in Men’s Middleweight
    Gene Raymond: Round 1 in Men’s Lightweight

Cycling: 10 Athletes
1948 Indian cycling team

    Jehangoo Amin: Men’s Team Pursuit, 4,000 metres
    Adi Havewala: Men’s Team Pursuit, 4,000 metres
    Malcolm Havladar: Men’s Road Race, Individual, Men’s Road Race, Team
    Raj Kumar Mehra: Men’s Road Race, Individual, Men’s Road Race, Team
    Eruch Mistry: Men’s Road Race, Individual, Men’s Road Race, Team
    Rusi Mulla Feroze: Round 1 in Men’s Sprint
    Rohinton Noble: 19th in Men’s 1,000 metres Time Trial, Men’s Team Pursuit, 4,000 metres
    Homi Powri: Men’s Road Race, Individual, Men’s Road Race, Team
    Piloo Sarkari: Men’s Team Pursuit, 4,000 metres

Football: Played one match and knocked out

    Squad: Talimeren Ao, Sattar Basheer, Robi Das, Ahmed Muhammad Khan, Sailen Manna, Sahu Mewalal, Taj Mohammed, Ramchandra Parab, Mahabir Prasad, Dhanraj Raman, KV Varadaraj, Sheikh Abdul Latif

In the knock-out format, India lost 1-2 to France in the 1st round.

Hockey: 4th Gold for India
Dhyan Chand refused the request to be part of this team, but Indian team still won their 4th consecutive Gold. Netherlands challenged in semifinal, otherwise rest of the matches were easy wins as they scored 25 goals in 5 matches and conceded just 3 goals.

    Squad: Leslie Claudius, Walter de Sousa, Keshav Dutt, Lawrie Fernandes, Ranganathan Francis, Gerry Glackan, Akhtar Hussain, Pat Jansen, Amir Kumar, Kishan Lal, Leo Pinto, Jaswant Rajput, Latif-ur Rehman, Reginald Rodrigues, Tarlochan Singh Bawa, Randhir Singh Gentle, Balbir Singh, Sr., G. Nandy Singh, Kunwar Digvijay Singh, Maxie Vaz

Matches

    Group A: Ind def Argentina 9-1
    Def Austria 8-0
    Def Spain 2-0
    Semis: Def Netherlands 2-1
    Final: Def Great Britain 4-0

Swimming: 7 Men

    Bimal Chandra: Round 1 in Men’s 400 metres Freestyle and Men’s 1,500 metres Freestyle
    Dilip Mitra: Round 1 in Men’s 100 metres Freestyle
    Prahtip Mitra: Round 1 in Men’s 100 metres Backstroke
    Isaac Monsoor: Round 1 in Men’s 100 metres Freestyle
    Prafulla Mullick: Round 1 in Men’s 200 metres Breaststroke
    Sachin Nag: Round 1 in Men’s 100 metres Freestyle
    Khamlillal Shah: Round 1 in Men’s 100 metres Backstroke

Water Polo: 9th

    Jahan Ahir, Samarandra Chatterjee, Suhas Chatterjee, Durga Das, Janini Dass, Dwarkadas Murarji, Isaac Monsoor, Sachin Nag, Gora Seal

Weightlifting

    Daniel Pon Mony: 16th (last) in Men’s Featherweight
    Dandamudi Rajagopal: 16th (last) in Men’s Heavyweight

Wrestling

    Anant Bhargava: Men’s Welterweight, Freestyle
    Nirmal Bhose: Men’s Bantamweight, Freestyle
    Khashaba Jhadav: 6th in Men’s Flyweight, Freestyle
    Keshav Roy: Men’s Middleweight, Freestyle
    Sarjarao Suryavanshi: Men’s Featherweight, Freestyle
    Banta Singh: Men’s Lightweight, Freestyle

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.