India's Greatest Olympians

Bangalore: Gagan Narang has joined an illustrious club of Indians by winning the bronze in 10m Air Rifle Event in London. A great news for India by starting off the campaign with a bronze. Here are the lists of India’s Greatest Olympians ever, reports MSN.

Khashaba Jadav (1952 Helsinki Games):

Khashaba Dadasahb Jadav, widely known as ‘Pocket Dynamo’, was independent India’s first individual Olympic medalist when he won the freestyle wrestling bronze medal at the 1952 Helsinki Games. Earlier, India had won gold medals only in hockey, a team sport. For nearly half a century, his would remain the only individual medal for India at the Olympics, until Leander Paes won a bronze in 1996 Atlanta Games.

Hailing from a wrestling background, Jadhav was an ardent fan of sports, mainly wrestling and swimming. At Helsinki, Jadhav had to fight seven bouts in all the 52kg freestyle event. In the first five, he met opponents from Europe and the Gulf countries and took barely five minutes to dispose them off. In the sixth round, his opponent was from Japan, but Japan’s attempted fouls were penalized giving Jadhav a win. At that time in the year, there was no fanfare from his return from Helsinki. No newspaper interview, no television. Television in fact was not even born in India then.