Norman Pritchard was the first Asian-born person to win an Olympic medal.
Today, China might dominate the medal tally at the Olympics, but interestingly, it was a boy from Kolkata, who had won it before all of them. We all talk about our Olympic gold winning Hockey teams, but rarely talk about him.
Like most of the other boys from Kolkata, his first love was football.
In fact, he holds a unique distinction of scoring the first hat-trick in an open football tournament.
But more than football, it was in athletics where he achieved unparalleled success.
People first took notice of him in the year 1899, at a 100 yards race event in Calcutta. He raced to the finish line in just 9.8 seconds, creating a world record.
It was his success in Kolkata that caught the eyes of the Englishmen.
He was invited to represent his club, the Bengal Presidency A.C., at an athletics meet in London.
It was the success he achieved here that motivated him to participate in the holy grail of all athletic competitions, The Olympics.
Pritchard participated in the 1900 Paris Olympics, but he did not officially represent India or Great Britain.
An interesting fact that you should know is that prior to the 1908 London Olympics, only a handful of countries used to participate in the Olympics and send their athletes. Most of the athletes used to participate as individual participants.
During the 1900 Paris Olympics, neither India nor Great Britain were part of the event, so Pritchard participated as an individual athlete.
Pritchard competed in five races and made it to the final of three of them.
He competed in 110-meter hurdles, 200 meters, 200-meter hurdles, 60 meters and 100 meters. Out of these five races, he failed to qualify only for the 60 meters and the 100 meters.
Out of the three races he qualified for, he failed to finish the 110 meters race. He stumbled before he could reach the finish line.
He won two silver medals for 200 meters and 200-meter hurdles and created history by becoming the first Indian-born athlete to win an Olympic Medal.
Pritchard competed against legendary athletes like Walter Tewksbury and Alvin Kraenzlein.
Kraenzlein beat Pritchard in the second place in the 200-metre hurdles, while Tewksbury got the better of him in the 200-meter race.
Although, he failed to win the Gold, he the won the hearts of millions.
After the Olympics, he retired from active sports. He served as the secretary of the Indian football association from the year 1900 to 1902.
He returned to India and soon moved into administration. In 1906, he moved to England and then finally to the US. It is said that he moved to England to support his father in his farms.
His vivid description of the reception that Lord Curzon received at the Delhi Durbar, launched his acting career.
During a dinner in December 1906 in London, when he was describing the Delhi Durbar in a dramatic way, famous theater personality Sir Charles Wyndham mistook him as an actor.
Sir Charles invited him to play a small role in the stage production, The Stronger Sex, at the Apollo Theatre in 1907. It proved that Pritchard was actually quite good at it.
He enjoyed a fairly successful career, acting in 26 plays and 27 movies.
Although the British officials have tried to stake a claim to his success, the IOC still credits Pritchard’s two silvers to India.
Many British officials have tried to prove that since India was a part of the British Empire when he participated, his medals actually belong to Great Britain.
What makes their claim even more strange is the fact that even though they have tried to claim Pritchard’s success as their own, they never tried to claim the three gold medals that India won for Hockey before its Independence.
Till date, The International Olympic Committee, in all its archives and website, continues to credit his two medals to India and not Great Britain.
It took another 28 years for someone from Asia to win a medal in the Olympics.
Way back in 1900, Pritchard proved that India could produce athletes that many other countries in the world couldn’t. It is just sad that India has failed to live up to the standard that Pritchard had set for us.
He proved that if one has the right attitude and temperament then nothing can stop him from achieving his goal.
Although the debate over his representation continues, there is no doubt that he remains one of the finest jewels this country has ever produced.