India's first-ever Olympic gold medal win after independence completes 72 years: Watch

August 12 remains a monumental day in Indian sports' history after the national hockey team led by Balbir Singh helped claim their first-ever Olympic gold medal as a free country in 1948. The gold medal win remains one of India's most iconic sporting moments where Britishers stood up to honour the national flag and the national anthem of a country they ruled until 1947. While the 1948 win was not the first of India's medals in hockey, it certainly was one of the most significant as it helped the country discover its identity as an independent nation after Partition. 

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India medals in hockey: Balbir Singh fires India to first medal post-Independence OTD 72 years ago

The Indian hockey team dominated hockey since the 1928 Olympic games, winning three consecutive gold medals before the games were called off due to World War II.  When the Olympics resumed in 1948, India lost some of their most skilful players from Punjab - Niaz Khan, Shah Rukh Muhammad, Aziz Malik and Ali Shah Dara -who were a part of India’s Berlin 1936 Olympics squad but chose to play for Pakistan. The Indian hockey team picked for the 1948 games was formidable, but were from different parts of the country and subsequently played a number of practice matches and attended camps in Bombay before travelling to London. 

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The 15-man team had as many as eight members from Bombay, including skipper Kishan Lal. Vice-captain KD Singh Babu was considered the lynchpin of the team while prominent players like Leslie Claudius, Keshav Dutt, Randhir Singh Gentle and goalkeeper Ranganathan Francis formed the core of the 1948 Olympics Indian hockey team. Balbir Singh had earlier missed out on the squad due to regional squabbles but was included after veteran Dickie Carr, a 1932 Gold medal winner, rallied for his inclusion. India won all their three games in Group A, before defeating the Netherlands in the semi-final. Playing against their colonisers and hosts Britain, Balbir Singh turned up with a quality performance, scoring twice to help India win 4-0. 

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India medals in hockey: Balbir Singh recalls India's 1948 win his autobiography 

In his autobiography The Golden hat-trick- My Hockey Days, Balbir Singh spoke about how Indian High Commissioner VK Krishna Menon had come running towards them after the full-time whistle. Incidentally, Singh was dropped from the team despite scoring six goals against Argentina and missed the games against Spain and the Netherlands. A few Indian students studying in London protested to the Indian High Commissioner and the rest is history. Balbir Singh in his book wrote that he was lucky that the final was against their former rulers and it was a pleasure and honour to beat them on their own soil. 

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The story of this historic victory was narrated in the film Gold, starring Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar. The Gold film was directed by Reema Kagti and also starred Mouni Roy, Amit Sadh, Vineet Kumar Singh, Kunal Kapoor, Sunny Kaushal and Nikita Dutta. India lifted four more gold medals in the next five attempts. They lifted another gold in the 1980 Olympics, but since then the 'Men In Blue' have fallen down the pecking order, failing to lift an Olympic medal in the past 40 years. 

(Image Courtesy: Team India Twitter)