Great Indian Olympians By Gulu Ezekiel and K. Arumugam, Thendral Thambi, Rs 200 Awards, accolades and dedication In Great Indian Olympians, two authors, Gulu Ezekiel and K. Arumugam have spent painstaking hours in research and recorded, for the benefit of prosperity, the achievements of India's great Olympians of the 20th century. Indian sport, except to a certain extent cricket, suffers from a lack of documentation and a sense of history. This book helps to, at least partially, fill up this void. The book is divided into three sections. The first section is written by Gulu Ezekiel, currently sports editor of indya.com and provides detailed background materials on the mystery man Norman Pritchard. This is a fascinating and well-researched chapter and takes the reader down an eventful memory lane. Ezekiel describes the controversy about Pritchard's nationality. Some people dispute the fact that he was an Indian. There is also an ongoing debate within Olympic circles about whether Pritchard's medals should be allocated to India or to Great Britain. After intensive research, the author has discovered that Pritchard was born in Alipore, Calcutta, on June 23, 1875 and worked as an assistant in the British firm of Bird and Company and lived at No. 3 Landsdowne Road. In Calcutta, Pritchard competed on behalf of the Bengal Presidency Athletic Club and took part in both football and athletics. In the 1900 Paris Olympics, Pritchard competed in five events: 60 metres, 100 metres, 200 metres, 110 metres and 200 metres hurdles. Including the heats, Pritchard took part in 12 races in a span of three days. He won silver medals in both the 200 metres and 200 metres hurdles events. Ezekiel has shown that Pritchard even set a world record in the 200 metres hurdles semi-finals, thereby becoming the only Indian athlete till now to set a world record in athletics. The next section of the book has been written by hockey historian K. Armugam and is a biographical sketch of six Olympic hockey gold medal winners. The choice of players is based on their historical role and importance. Dhyan Chand is the first mentioned because he gave the Indian nation a distinct identity with his skills in the three Olympic games of 1928, 1932 and 1936. Balbir Singh of Punjab is mentioned next. Singh gave independent India immense joy and pride by his prolific goal scoring feats in the 1948, 1952 and 1956 Olympics, in which the Indian team won the gold medals. Calcutta-based Leslie Claudius is chosen for taking part in four Olympic games and as an Anglo-Indian who contributed considerably to the development of Indian sport. Shanker Laxman, the goalkeeper, whose heroic display helped India thwart Pakistan and win the gold medal in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics is chosen for this unforgettable feat. The brilliant dribbler, Mohammed Shahid, has been selected as well. He is credited for bringing back Indian hockey into the limelight. He is considered to be a giant in the era of hockey on artificial surface. The final selection is of the defender, Balkishen Singh, the only Olympian, who, after his playing career became a professional coach. Interesting anecdotes enliven these chapters. It is narrated that Dhyan Chand was offered the rank of a field marshal by Adolf Hitler, under the condition that he migrated to Germany. It is also mentioned that Leslie Claudius's first love was football and he took to hockey quite by chance, while playing a practice match when one of the teams found itself short by one player. The third section of the book, again written by Gulu Ezekiel, deals with six Olympians who achieved glory for India. They are: the wrestler, Keshaba Jadhav, bronze medallist in Helsinki in 1952, Milkha Singh, who came fourth in the 400 metres in the 1960 Rome Olympics, Gurbachan Singh Randhawa, fifth in the 110 metres hurdles in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, P.T. Usha, fourth in the 400 metres hurdles in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and Leander Paes, bronze medallist in the 1996 Olympics.