Hockey legend Balbir Senior’s wish to see his lost memorabilia remained unfulfilled
NEW DELHI : For last eight years he left no stones unturned to regain his lost memorabilia, which he had donated way back in 1985 to the Sports Authority of India, but Hockey legend Balbir Singh Sr’s last wish to see his treasure remained unfulfilled.
One of India’s greatest hockey players who won three Olympic gold medals in a stellar career, Singh died at a hospital here on Monday after battling multiple health issues for over two weeks. In August, 2015, PTI had reported about his missing memorabilia, which included an Olympic blazer, medals and rare pictures. It was donated to SAI for a proposed museum which never saw the light of day.
Singh had said then that in 1985, he had donated his med- als and memorabilia to the then SAI Secretary on being told that they would be displayed in a show window’ at the then proposed National Sports Museum.
With the exception of his Olympic medals and the Padma Shri award, everything else - including his captain’s Melbourne Olympic blazer, 36 medals including Tokyo Asiad (1958) silver, and over 100 rare photographs - were among the items donated by him.
Singh, who had won gold medals at London (1948), Helsinki (1952) and Melbourne (1956) Olympics, travelled to Delhi many times with his maternal grandson Kabir to meet ministers or officials in this regard. The Hockey great just kept receiving assurances and nothing concrete was done in this regard. His daughter Sushbir and many Hockey lovers also wrote on social media about it but nothing happened.
They came to know that the items were missing when the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Museum wanted the Melbourne Games blazer to be a part of the official London Olympics (2012) exhibition where he was the only Indian and the only hockey player chosen among 16 icons across all participants in all disciplines in 116 years of the modern Olympics era.