Google Doodle pays tribute to wrestler KD Jadhav, India’s first Olympic medallist

Jadhav, a bantamweight category wrestler, won a bronze medal in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, becoming independent India’s first individual Olympic medallist.

K.D. Jadhav, Indian wrestler and Olympic medallist, during a visit to Madras on December 24, 1957. | Photo Credit: THE HINDU ARCHIVES

Google Doodle paid a tribute to Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav, independent India’s first individual Olympic medallist, on Sunday as January 15 marks the wrestler’s 97th birth anniversary.

Jadhav, a bantamweight category wrestler, won a bronze medal in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics after losing his sixth round to Japanese Shohachi Ishii.

The wrestler also competed in the 1948 Olympics. But due to his lack of experience on the mat, he could finish sixth.

Jadhav won several medals at the state and national levels. After the Olympic medal-winning performance, he secured a job with Mumbai Police.

An injury kept him away from competing in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. He would remain on the police for nearly 30 years, retiring in 1983 as an assistant commissioner of police in Maharashtra. But despite his service to the police, he had to sell his wife’s jewellery to build a house post-retirement in Satara town of Maharashtra. He died a year later at the age of 58.

In 2001, he was posthumously accorded the Arjuna award. And in 2010, the Indian government renamed the wrestling stadium in the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex in New Delhi after Jadhav. It is now known as the K.D. Jadhav Indoor Hall.