Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 7

Legendary hockey player Keshav Datt, the sole surviving member of the Indian team that won gold at the 1948 London Olympics, died at age 95 in Kolkata today.

Datt is survived by two sons and a daughter, who are all settled abroad. His attendant Dolly Bairahi said he passed away early today due to age-related ailments after being unwell for some time.

Born in Lahore in 1925, Datt was also part of the team that won gold at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Datt, who had to leave the city of his birth after the country was partitioned in 1947, settled down in Kolkata in 1950. He missed the opportunity to claim a hat-trick of Olympics gold medals when his employer, Brooke Bond, did not allow him leave for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

Datt came to prominence as a player when he was attending Lahore’s Government College. His talent was noticed when he was representing the pre-partitioned Punjab in the National Championship. Mentored by Dhyan Chand, he progressed rapidly as he went on to play with some of the greatest players in Indian hockey. Datt toured East Africa under Dhyan Chand in 1947.

“It’s a very sad time for our family. Normally I visit him three-four times a year but because of the pandemic, I’ve not been able to see him since 2019,” his daughter Anjali Keshav Poulsen said from Copenhagen. (Agency inputs)