Indian hockey legend Leslie Claudius shares his experience of the four Olympics
Among the three gold medals I won in Olympics — 1948 (London), 1952 (Helsinki) and 1956 (Melbourne) — we had the best team in Helsinki. We played the final against Holland who really were a good side, but we won 6-1.
The most interesting part was they thought their defeat a fluke and they invited us to Holland for a re-match, but this time also we won it by an identical margin to re-establish our supremacy in the world hockey.
Olympics is where you get to mingle out with so many legends as I have. I bumped onto Muhammad Ali and Wilma Rudolph in 1960. We became friends and even went to the Unity Hall in the evening.
I regret for not winning my fourth gold medal on the trot. We were the best team in the competition but missed out on the medal losing to Pakistan. I am still terribly upset for that.
Otherwise, it has been a great journey in all the four Olympics.
Being the best medal hopes, we enjoyed being at the front row during the march past in the opening ceremony.
Carrying the Indian tri-colour in front of a million crowd on their feet was offcourse a hair-raising experience and everytime I felt as if I was in the seventh heaven.
It seemed like any other tournament while on the ground. But off it, it was something ultimate that a sportsman could achieve.
In my first Olympics, I was very young and I didn’t even get to play the final, but in the next three editions, I took active parts which I enjoyed very much.
—As told to Sanjib Guha
