Satara (Maharashtra): Google on Sunday honoured Olympian Khashaba Jadhav, India's first individual athlete, who won an Olympic medal at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helenski in freestyle wrestling, on his 97th birth anniversary. Jadhav was popular by the name 'Pocket Dynamo'. Jadhav was born on January 15, 1926, at Goleshwar village in the Satara district of Maharashtra. He was the youngest of five sons of a renowned wrestler Dadasaheb Jadhav.
He also participated in the Quit India Movement providing shelter and providing a hiding place to the revolutionaries and circulating letters against the British were some of his contributions to the movement. He resolved to unfurl the tricolour flag in the Olympics on Independence Day August 15, 1947. Jadhav realised his dream after five years by winning an individual medal in the Helenski Olympics.
Also read: Google Doodle celebrates 96th birth anniversary of Bhupen Hazarika
Jadhav's first feel of the big stage was at the 1948 London Olympics; his journey was funded by the Maharaja of Kolhapur. During his stay in London, he was trained by Rees Gardner, a former lightweight world champion from the United States. It was Gardner's guidance that saw Jadhav finish sixth in the flyweight section, despite being unfamiliar with wrestling on the mat.
For the next four years, Jadhav trained even harder for the Helsinki Olympics where he moved up in weight and participated in the 125 lb bantamweight category, which saw wrestlers from twenty-four countries, he increased the tempo of his preparation for the Olympics in Helsinki. He stunned the spectators by defeating the Australian wrestler Bert Harris in the first few minutes of the bout. He went on to defeat Billy Jernigan of the US, but lost to Mansour Raeisi of Iran and won a bronze medal in Helenski Olympics, becoming the first medal winner from independent India.
