Sikhs in
Hockey at Olympic Games
This website is a tribute to the Sikh community that, over the
decades, has become synonymous with field hockey and the Olympic Games.
The Sikh Olympic saga began withIndia's
debut at the 1928 Games in
Amsterdam. The team had one
Sikh player, Kehar Singh Gill from
Punjab. Since then, the community has
figured prominently at every Olympic Games as players or coaches or
umpires.
Olympic Medal Winning
42 Sikhs
No.
Player
Country
Medal(s) & Year
Some
highlights of the community’s involvement at the Olympic Games:
132 have played at
Olympic Games - representing eight countries (India,
Kenya,
Uganda,
Tanzania,
Malaysia,
Canada,
Hong Kong and Great
Britain).
Members
of nine Gold medal teams (8 India and 1 Great Britain),
one Silver medal team (India) and three Bronze medal teams
(2 India and 1 Great Britain).
1968
Mexico City Olympics: 13
Sikhs in Indian team with Prithipal
and Gurbux
as joint captains. 9 Sikhs in the Kenyan team
captained by Avtar
Singh Sohal.
1972
Munich Olympics: 30
Sikhs represented India, Kenya, Uganda and
Malaysia.
India
vs Kenya match had 15 Sikh players on the
field at the same time (10 for Kenya and 5
for India)
Khalsa
Sports Club, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Hockey Team 1945
Pritam
Singh Sandhu, left on floor in above photo, went
on to represent Kenya at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games
and later became the Chairman of Kenya Hockey Union.
Olympic Records:
Sikh
players are the holders of the following Olympic
Games records:
The
record of the most goals scored in an Olympic
final is in the hands of India's Balbir
Singh 'Senior', who scored five goals in Helsinki
on 24th July 1952 when India defeated Holland
6 -1.
India's
Ajit
Singh scored the fastest goal in Olympic history
when he scored after only 15 seconds in the opening
match in Montreal 1976 against Argentina on 18th
July 1976.
Balbir
Singh 'Senior' and Dhyan Chand hold the record of
winning three consective Olympic Gold medals and being
the Captain of a winning team.
World Cup Results:
Complete
World Cup Results are now on the website showing all Sikh
players and Officials who played in the 11 World Cups
since 1971.
Sikh Hockey Internationals:
We
currently have records that show Sikhs have represented
13 countries at hockey, viz: Canada, England, Great Britain,
Hong Kong, India, Kenya, Malawi, Malaysia, Scotland, Singapore,
Tanzania, Uganda and USA.
Information
of any other countries which Sikhs have represented will
be most appreciated, in particularly from Fiji, Indonesia,
Liberia, Thailand and Zambia
