Chandigarh, Sept 15: Hockey legend Balbir Singh Sr. has claimed that Sports Authority of India has misplaced his priceless memoribilia, which inculdes his Olympic blazer, medals and rare pictures he had donated to SAI in 1985.
The tripple Olympci gold medallist said that he had donated his collection to A S Talwar, the then SAI secretary but when he inquired about them before the 2012 London Olympics, SAI officials claimed ignorance.
“I have donated everything I had except Olympic medals and Padamshri award to SAI. They told me at that time that it will be housed in the SAI sports museum to be built at Jawahar Lal Nehru stadium in New Delhi but it never happened,” Balbir said.
“That included Melbourne Olympic blazer, 24 medals including Tokyo Asiad (1958) silver, some rare snaps with India’s first Governor General C Rajgopalachari, first President Dr Rajendra Prasad, first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Mrs Indira Gandhi,” the gold medal winner of London (1948), Helsinki (1952) and Melbourne (1956) Olympics claimed.
He said that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) wanted the Melbourne Games blazer to be a part of official London Olympic exhibition where he was the only Indian amongst 16 chosen Olympic legends across of modern Olympic history.
“That is when my grandson contacted SAI to get that blazer as I had nothing with me apart from Olympic medals. But SAI officials said that they don’t know about the whereabouts of my treasure so I sent only Olympic medals to London which were showcased there,” said the ace centre forward, whose world record for most goals scored by an individual in an in the men’s hockey final of Olympics still remains unbeaten. Balbir scored five goals in India’s 6-1 victory over the Netherlands in the gold medal game of the 1952 Games. (PTI)
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