From the mud akhara to the Olympic pool: on National Sports Day, Kashi counts twelve of its own who reached the Games

National Sports Day, marked on 29 August for Major Dhyan Chand's birthday, gave Banaras a reason to count its own. Twelve athletes with Kashi ties have gone to the Olympic Games — most of them from a time when the city trained its sportspeople on mud akharas and open grounds rather than synthetic tracks. The list starts in 1948. Anant Ram Bhargav wrestled for India at the London Games that year, and Sachin Nag swam the 100 metres and played water polo at the same Olympics before returning for Helsinki in 1952; at the first Asian Games in Delhi in 1951 he took gold in the 100 metres. Guljara Singh ran the distances at Helsinki. Lakshmi Kant Pandey, known across the city's wrestling circles as Chikkan Pandey, went to Melbourne in 1956. What ties them together is less the medals than the route. These were athletes who came up without modern facilities, out of neighbourhood akharas and school grounds, and still made the national side — and in doing so they left a path for the swimmers, wrestlers and runners the city sends to trials today. On a day the rest of the country gives to Dhyan Chand, Banaras has a shelf of its own names to take down and dust off.

Compiled by HelloBanaras from public sources: Amar Ujala — Varanasi