Olympic hockey Gold medal player, The 90-year-old received the prestigious trophy for Major Dhyan Chand Lifetime Achievement Award along with a cheque of Rs 30 lakh.
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Balbir Senior featured for the Indian national hockey team during the London Olympics in 1948. He earned a good reputation for being a classy player and had also played a substantial part in the Helsinki Olympics in 1952 and the Melbourne Olympics in 1956.
Balbir Singh was born in 1924 in Punjab. He was a field hockey player for India, who did really well during the London, Helsinki and Melbourne Olympics in 1948, 1952 and 1956 respectively. The team clinched the gold medal in all the three Olympics. In fact, he was the skipper during the Melbourne Olympics. Balbir was the manager and head coach of the Indian men’s hockey team for the 1975 World Cup, which was won by India.
During the London Olympics in 2012, he was felicitated in the Olympic Museum exhibition, “The Olympic Journey: The Story of the Games” staged at the Royal Opera House. It is worth mentioning here that Balbir Senior was the first sportsperson to be honored with the Padma Shri in 1957.
After four years, he performed much better as he helped the team by scoring 13 goals. He was the talk of the town for scoring 70 per cent of India’s total goals in the competition. Among those goals, 5 came in team’s 6-1 win over the Netherlands, which was a new Olympic final record.
Not many people would bravely step up and do good deeds for the welfare of Indian society. Some do to get fame and reputation whereas some work behind the scenes without announcing it to the public because they care about accomplishing the task, come what may.