India in Olympics

India In Olympics

India (the then undivided India under the British-India flag) first sent an official team to the Summer Olympic Games at Antwerp, Belgium in 1920, and since then have participated in every Summer Games, defying all kind of political pressures to ‘Boycott certain Olympic Games’ from time to time. 

 The National Olympic Committee for India is the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), it was created in 1927.  At present, 21 National Sports Federations and 21 State Olympic Associations are affiliated to the IOA, which is responsible for participation of Indian contingents in Olympic, Commonwealth, Asian and other International Sports fixtures.

 The 86^th Session of International Olympic Committee was held in New Delhi from 21st to 28th March 1983. This was the first time that a session of the IOC was  held in India. Many important decisions, including that on Eligibility Code for participants in the Olympic games, with far reaching effects, were taken during the course of the Session in New Delhi. The main Session was held from 25th to 28th March 1983, IOC had also held meetings of the Executive Board on 23rd and 24th March 1983. In addition a large number of Commissions' meetings of the IOC  also took place. About 80 of the 84 members took part in the meeting.

 First Indian postage stamps entirely devoted to the sacred Olympic Games were issued on 10 December 1968 on the opening day of the Mexico Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad. Since 1968 India Post issued commemorative for every Games of Summer Olympics

The 1994 Winter Olympic Games were the first following the implementation of stricter qualifying standards, which prevented representatives of low-performing countries from competing without meeting minimum standards. As a consequence, eleven "warm-weather countries (India included)" originally signed up to participate in the Games, but were ultimately eliminated as none of their athletes succeeded in qualifying. Norway issued a set of two stamps honoring the competitors of  the nations which have National Olympic Committees recognized by the IOC. The stamp shown above portrays a parade of the National Flags of  non-European nations (including Indian national flag) .

 Games of the XXIII Olympiad : The 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics opening ceremony; Spectators creating a grand display of the National flags of all the participating nations. 

 

 Games of the XXIV Olympiad : The 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics opening ceremony Flag bearers including Kartar Dhillon Singh of India.

(The Gambian souvenir stamps are from the collection of Kenneth Sequeira of Dubai)