About sports in india

1. VOLLEYBALL IN MY COUNTRY
MONISHA CHANDRAMOULI
233A

2. • A game played widely
across the country,
volleyball has been a
part of the Indian
sporting conscience for
more than seven
decades.

3. HISTORY OF VOLLEYBALL IN INDIA
• Though it was informally played for a long time, the first interstate
volleyball championships were held by the Indian Olympic Association
(IOA) in 1936 in pre-independent India.
• The sport gained proper structure with the formation of the Volleyball
Federation of India (VFI) in 1951, and the erstwhile interstate tournament
evolved into the Senior National Championships, with the first edition
held in 1952.
• It helped the nation discover several talents who went on to play with
great distinction for the Indian volleyball team.

4. INDIA AT THE ASIAN GAMES
• The Indian volleyball team had an almost immediate impact on the global
stage, winning the 1955 Asian Tournament in Tokyo and another followed
soon, at the 1958 Asian Games.
• Volleyball was played for the first time at that edition, and the Indian men’
volleyball team, led by the veteran Gurudev Singh, clinched bronze.
• India beat Hong Kong and the Philippines in three straight sets but could
not get past volleyball powerhouses Iran and Japan, though they
managed to win a set against each.The Indian volleyball team managed to
go one better four years later.

5. • At the 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta, legendary players Nripjit Singh
Bedi and A Palaniswamy, both Arjuna Award winners, had graduated
to the senior team, which was led by TP Padmanabhan Nair, who
was also a part of the 1958 team.

7. THE FINEST INDIAN VOLLEYBALL TEAM
• At the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul, India sent arguably their best volleyball
team ever.
• Led by the enigmatic Cyril Valloor, the team boasted of current national
coach GE Sridharan, K Udayakumar, who later went on to captain the
Indian volleyball team, Abdul Basith, Dalel Singh and PV Ramana, father of
Indian badminton star PV Sindhu.
• All of them were Arjuna awardees but the most special of them all and the
team’s lynchpin was the maverick talent Jimmy George, an Arjuna winner
himself and a legend of Indian volleyball.

8. THE WOMEN’S INDIAN VOLLEYBALL TEAM
• The women’s game slowly started taking shape in 1977-78 when veteran
Dipti Malik, who had taken West Bengal to the title the previous year, led
the Indian Railways team to the senior championships in its first year of
formation.
• The victory helped the team members earn jobs with the railways, and
with the financial aspect secure, it allowed the players to focus on the
game. It was no surprise then that the Railways team has dominated the
domestic circuit, winning 33 titles and ending runners-up eight times
since then.

10. INDIAN VOLLEYBALL IN RECENT YEARS
• The general popularity of volleyball in India declined in the years to
follow as in-fighting within federations coincided with the death of
Jimmy George in an accident in 1987. Adding to it was the rise of
the Indian cricket team as a powerhouse.
• The Indian volleyball men and women’s teams dominated the South
Asian Federation Games in the nineties, winning three medals each,
but it did not spark a revival, with underpar performances to follow
at the 2002 and 2006 Asian Games by the men.

11. • The Indian volleyball men and women’s teams dominated the South
Asian Federation Games in the nineties, winning three medals each,
but it did not spark a revival, with underpar performances to follow
at the 2002 and 2006 Asian Games by the men.
• The 2010 and 2014 editions provided some respite as the Indian
volleyball men’s team finished a respectable fifth with modern-day
stars and inspirational captains Sinnadu Prabhagaran and Mohan
Ukkrapandian leading the way.