Remember Shantaram Jadhav? He won India a medal in 1960 Olympics

Ageing star turns 80 this year, has received next to no recognition, lives a quiet life with wife at a Tridalnagar society for senior citizens NITIN PATIL

ACE field hockey player and former national hockey team captain Dhanraj Pillay is not the city’s only contribution to the national game. Shantaram Jadhav, who played against Pakistan in the 1960 Rome Olympics and bagged a silver medal in the game that India lost by a lone goal, deserves probably as much recognition and accolades for his contribution to the national sport. Yet fame and adulation are far removed from this ageing star who will turn eighty this year and lives a quiet life with his wife at Tridalnagar, Yerwada, in a society built for senior citizens who were once a part of the Armed Forces.
Jadhav, who was born in Devrukh village in Ratnagiri district of coastal Maharashtra, was part of the Defence forces for around 30 years and was chosen to the national hockey team. He was part of the teams that won several laurels, including the Beighton Cup in Kolkata and the Aga Khan Cup in 1962.

Speaking to The Indian Express , Jadhav fondly reminisced that he had started playing hockey as a teenager. “I liked hockey as a child. I moved to Ajmer for my education, where I learnt the techniques of the game. I joined the Armed Forces in 1952 and played a number of matches. I also played for Maratha infantry in Belgaum, Karnataka.”

He was selected for the 1960 Rome Olympics and even received lessons from Dhyanchand, who was the national coach then. “He gave us wonderful demonstrations of his skills. Besides me, there were two other players in that team from Maharashtra – Bandu Patil and Shankar Laxman,” Jadhav said.

“We played matches against five countries, including Holland, Belgium, Denmark and Australia. During the final against Pakistan, we were close to scoring a goal, but as fate would have it, Pakistan posted a goal in the concluding moments of the match and won,” he recollects.

The silver medal that Jadhav received has been kept at a museum in Belgaum.

A newly developed stadium in Belgaum has a wing named after Jadhav.

Sports writer Sanjay Dudhane, who has mentioned Shantaram Jadhav and other neglected Olympic medal winners from India in his coming book in Marathi Vatchal Olympic Chi, said, “In India, cricket has taken the centre stage, while other sports have been sidelined. As far as Indian cricket is concerned, we won only two World Cups so far -first in 1983 and the latest being the Twenty20 World Championship last year. However, in hockey, we have to our credit several important victories and yet none of the hockey heroes have not got the recognition they deserved.”