Day Balbir Singh flew with the flag

CHANDIGARH: Hockey wizard Balbir Singh Sr had won many laurels, but the one that meant more than others was when on August 12, 1948, independent India won the maiden Olympic gold in the sport. This was in the London Olympics, a year af ter India attained independence and Singh scored two of the four goals that India pumped against host England in the final.

More important, it was against a countr y which had colonised India and Singh, at a commemorative function here in 2018, recalled the emotions it stirred up.

"As our national anthem was being played and the Tricolour was going up, I felt that I too was flying with the flag. The sense of patriotism that I felt was beyond any other feeling in the world," he had recalled recently.

One of the greatest hockey players of all time, Singh won three Olympic gold medals in a stellar career.

Singh also recalled how, despite being in tremendous form, he was not selected among the playing eleven for the finals in 1948, forcing some of his well-wishers to approach the then Indian High Commissioner in London, V K Krishna Menon, for help.

Singh said that it was only af ter Menon's intervention that he was included in the playing eleven.