India celebrates National Sports Day

@npnews24x7

Observed annually on August 29 in India, National Sports Day is a day which celebrates and honors the birthday of Dhyan Chand – a field hockey player who is considered by many to be the best of all time. Also known as Rashtriya Khel Divas or National Sports Day of India.

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Every year on this day, Arjuna and Khel Ratna awards are conferred by the President of India to celebrate the achievements of exceptional athletes in the country. This year, though, the date has been postponed to September 25 so the Indian athletes could return from Asian Games 2018 taking place in Indonesia.

Often called a ‘magician’ on the Hockey field, Dhyan Chand had such an aura that even Adolf Hitler offered him money to play for Germany. The man known for his astonishing goal-scoring skills has won three Olympic gold medals during the time Indian hockey was the most dominant in the year 1928,1932 and 1936.

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Hockey authorities in the Netherlands once broke Dhyan Chand’s hockey stick to make sure that there is no magnet in the stick. Dhyan Chand’s control on the ball was so smooth that it used to look like that the hockey stick is just the extinction of his hand. He scored more than 400 goals in his international hockey career.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his tributes to one of the greatest field hockey players of all time and urged people to give priorities to sports and fitness related activities as well.

God of cricket, Bharat Ratna Sachin Tendulkar tweeted, “Today, and every day going forward, let us make the sport a way of life. There can be no better way to celebrate our #NationalSportsDay. #SportPLAYINGIndia”

Dhyan Chand remains a legendary figure in Indian and world hockey. His astounding skills have been glorified in various apocryphal stories and anecdotes. A number of such these revolve around the fact that Singh had an extraordinary control over dribbling the ball.