UP Sports, Stadiums and State Awards: Exam Notes

Uttar Pradesh has given Indian sport its most famous name, Major Dhyan Chand, and with him a hockey tradition that runs from the Olympic golds of the nineteen twenties to the players of Varanasi and Barabanki. Around that tradition the state has built cricket grounds that host international matches, a motor racing circuit that brought Formula One to India, and its own awards for sportspersons. State examinations in Uttar Pradesh and the general awareness sections of national papers ask for the fixed facts of this topic: who was born where, which stadium stands in which city, and which award is given to whom.

Major Dhyan Chand, the wizard of hockey

Dhyan Chand was born on 29 August 1905 at Allahabad, now Prayagraj, and served in the army, rising to the rank of Major. He played centre forward with a stick control so complete that he was called the wizard of hockey, and he was part of the Indian teams that won three successive Olympic gold medals, at Amsterdam in 1928, at Los Angeles in 1932 and at Berlin in 1936, where he was the captain. He was given the Padma Bhushan in 1956. His birthday, 29 August, is observed every year as National Sports Day, on which the national sports awards are presented. Two awards carry his name. The Dhyan Chand Award is given for lifetime achievement in sports, and in 2021 the highest sporting honour of the country, until then the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, was renamed the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award.

The hockey line from Uttar Pradesh

• Kunwar Digvijay Singh, known as K. D. Singh Babu, came from Barabanki and won Olympic gold with India at London in 1948 and at Helsinki in 1952, where he led the team. The K. D. Singh Babu Stadium at Lucknow is named after him.
• Mohammed Shahid of Varanasi, famous for his dribbling, was a member of the Indian team that won the Olympic gold at Moscow in 1980, and he received the Padma Shri in 1986.
• The state continues to send players to the national hockey squads from the akharas and hockey centres of Varanasi, Lucknow, Meerut and Barabanki.

Stadiums and sporting venues

The first Formula One race in India, the Indian Grand Prix of 2011 at the Buddh International Circuit, was won by Sebastian Vettel, and the race was held for three seasons before it was dropped from the calendar. The circuit has since been used for other motor sport events, which is why it remains the standard answer for motor racing in Uttar Pradesh.

Sportspersons of the state

Cricket from Uttar Pradesh has produced Mohammad Kaif of Allahabad, Suresh Raina from the Ghaziabad district, Praveen Kumar and Bhuvneshwar Kumar of Meerut, Piyush Chawla of Aligarh, Rudra Pratap Singh of Sultanpur and Kuldeep Yadav of Kanpur, and the state association has its base at Kanpur. In athletics, Sudha Singh of Raebareli won the gold medal in the 3000 metres steeplechase at the Asian Games of 2010 at Guangzhou, and Annu Rani of Meerut district has represented India in javelin at the Olympic Games and the World Championships. The state also has a long wrestling tradition in the akharas of the western districts and of Varanasi, and it runs sports hostels and a stipend scheme through its sports department to bring players from villages into organised training.

The state awards

Keep the state awards apart from the national ones. The national awards, announced on National Sports Day, are the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award for the most outstanding performance, the Arjuna Award for consistent performance over years, the Dronacharya Award for coaches, the Dhyan Chand Award for lifetime achievement and the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar for institutions, while the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy goes to the best performing university. The Laxman and Rani Laxmi Bai awards are given by the Government of Uttar Pradesh to its own sportspersons, with a cash prize, and are not connected to the national list.

How this topic is asked

Questions stay close to the names and the places. Dhyan Chand birthplace and birthday, the renaming of the Khel Ratna in 2021, the city of Green Park and of Ekana, the district of the Buddh International Circuit, the sport and the player behind the K. D. Singh Babu Stadium, and the pairing of the Laxman Award with men and the Rani Laxmi Bai Award with women are the facts that return paper after paper.