Unknown facts about hockey Wizard Dhyanchand..

VarahiMedia.com online news,August 29th,2023: India’s greatest hockey player Major Dhyan Chand represented India in three Olympic Games. His team did wonders during the 1928, 1932 and 1936 Olympics. His team won the gold medal.

His goal-scoring ability would have had the opposition losing. Dhyan Chand achieved the level of Don Bradman in cricket and Pele in football in hockey.

29 August is the 118th birth anniversary of ‘Hockey Wizard’ Major Dhyan Chand. Dhyan Chand was born on August 29, 1905 in Allahabad and his birth anniversary is celebrated on August 29 every year as National Sports Day in the country. Let’s know more about this great player of India..

Dhyan Chand joined the Indian Army at the age of 16. After getting admission, he started playing hockey. Dhyan Chand was very practiced. He used to work hard every day when the moon came at night. That’s why his fellow players nicknamed him ‘Chand’. Dhyan Chand’s original name is Dhyan Singh. As all his friends called him Dhyan Chand, everyone got used to the same name.

Dhyan Chand became the highest goalscorer for India in the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam. Dhyanchand scored 14 goals in that tournament. A local newspaper at the time wrote, ‘It’s not hockey, it’s magic, Dhyan Chand is a hockey magician’.

Dhyan Chand has played many matches, but there is one match that he loves the most. Dhyan Chand used to say that his favorite match was the Bigton Club final between Calcutta Customs and Jhansi Heroes in 1933.

Dhyan Chand loved hockey so much that he cut a piece of wood from a tree into the shape of a hockey stick and started playing with it. He used to play hockey all night. He remembers nothing but hockey. Compared to hockey, he paid less attention to studies.

In the 1932 Olympic final, India defeated America 24–1. Dhyan Chand scored eight goals in that match. His brother Roop Singh scored 10 goals. German dictator Hitler himself gave Dhyan Chand a senior post in the German army. But he preferred to stay in India.

He wrote in his autobiography ‘Goal’, You should know that I am a very simple man. When Dhyanchand failed to score a goal in a match, he complained to the match referee about the size of the goal posts. Surprisingly, the width of the post is less as per international standards.

Khel Ratna Award is given in the name of Dhyan Chand in the country. Earlier it was named Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award. But in 2021, the name of this award was changed. Dhyanchand Khel was changed to Ratna Award.