Balkrishan Singh

Who was Balkrishan Singh?

Balkrishan Singh was field hockey player from India who won the gold medal at the 1956 Summer Olympics.

Balkrishan Singh is perhaps the only player in the country to have won the gold medal both as a player and as a coach. He was a member of the gold medal-winning team in the 1956 Olympics and was chief coach of the team that won the gold in the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Balkrishan went to Australia in 1965 to train the women’s national squad. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser was so impressed with him that he went on record praising Balkrishan Singh’s coaching abilities.

He was the first coach to experiment with the concept of total hockey in India. He first put this concept into use during the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Total hockey, in his view, was hockey which should be played like basketball — attack together and defend together.

He is hockey’s first ever player-coach. In him one could easily traverse through the vicissitude of Independent India's hockey history. More so, the twice Olympic medallist is the lone Olympian to coach four Olympic teams.

His father, Brigadier Dalip Singh when put his ward in the F.C College, Lahore said, "You should commanded respect in the college as I did in sports here". Balkrishan lived up to his father’s words – excelled in athletics and hockey.