Full Name: Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav
Born: January 15, 1926(1926-01-15)
Died: August 14, 1984 (aged 58)
Residence: Satara,Maharashtra,India
Occupation: Wrestler
Claim to Fame: Men's wrestling Bronze at 1952 Helsinki (Bantamweight)
Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav (January 15, 1926 – August 14, 1984), or KD Jadhav, widely known as 'Pocket Dynamo', was independent India's first individual Olympic medalist when he won the wrestling bronze medal at the 1952 Helsinki Games. Since 1900 when Norman Pritchard won two silver medals in athletics, India had won gold medals only in field hockey, a team sport. For nearly half a century, his would remain the only individual medal for India at the Olympics until Leander Paes won a bronze in 1996.
Hailing from a wrestling background, Jadhav was an ardent fan of sports, mainly wrestling, kabaddi, running, swimming and others. His father, a wrestler himself taught Jadhav about the sport and despite being the youngest in the family managed to grasp the game and outclassed everyone. Gradually he began emerging as undisputed wrestler in the area and soon was competing in national events.
Jadhav was fleet footed, which made him different from other wrestlers of his time. English coach Rees Gardner saw this trait in him and trained him prior to 1948 Olympic games.
In the 1948 London Olympics, he participated in the flyweight category finishing sixth. Four years later, before the selection for Helsinki Olympics, Jadhav alleged that nepotism among officials prevented him from getting selected for the Olympics.
According to him, they intentionally gave him one point less that the eventual winner at the Madras Nationals, and this ruled him out of the Olympics. He did not bow down to corrupt officialdom and appealed to Maharaja of Patiala seeking justice. Fortunately the Maharaja of Patiala loved sports, saw his point, and arranged his entry in Olympic trials where he floored his opponent and won an entry in the Olympics.
Now Jadhav faced his next set of problems. He had to arrange for money for his travel to Helsinki. Even the principal of Kolhapur's Rajaram college, Mr. Khardekar, mortgaged his house for a sum of Rs. 7,000 to pay for his travelling cost. Local shopkeepers from his village Goleshwar, in Karad district presented him with groceries and other items of use.
At Helsinki, Jadhav had to fight seven bouts in all in the 52 kg freestyle event.
In the first five, he met opponents from Europe and the Gulf countries and took barely five minutes to dispose them off. In the sixth round, his opponent was the famed Shonachi Ishi of Japan. Ishi's novelty of the ankle hold surprised Jadhav, but when he counterattacked, Ishi attempted rolling fouls which were penalised giving Jadhav a win.
Unfortunately his next bout was soon after this sapping bout. This was officially not permissible, but since there was no Indian official to lodge an official protest, he had to face this bout within less than half an hour of this bout with Ishi.
The tired Jadhav took on his next opponent, Manod Bekov of Russia. It is believed that had Jadhav not been tired from his previous bout, he would have defeated Bekov in no time, but tired as he was, he was beaten by Bekov and had to settle for a bronze.
Despite his loss, his was a unique achievement in India. Yet like most talented individuals in developing countries, he was largely forgotten. A principal reason for his oblivion was that in India cricket dominates and all other sports invariably take a backseat.
There was no fanfare from his return to Helsinki. No newspaper interviews, no television. Televison in fact was not born in India then! There was however a small felicitation for him at Mumbai's Shivaji Mandir auditorium in Dadar. Interestingly there was also a cavalcade of 101 bullock carts from Karad to his village.
After this glorious moment he slid into oblivion and despite serving in the state police was living in poverty until he died - almost certainly a broken man - in 1984 in a road accident.
A tribute to his sterling feat is that it remained unmatched for 56 long years. In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Sushil Kumar ultimately won bronze in wrestling equaling - not beating - Jadhav's feat!
Source: Wiki
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