Balkrishan Singh

All you want to know about Balkrishan Singh

Men's field hockey
Olympic medal record
Competitor for India
Gold	1956 Melbourne	Team Competition

Balkrishan Singh (March 10, 1933 – December 31, 2004) was field hockey player from India who won the gold medal at the 1956 Summer Olympics.

Balkrishan Singh is perhaps the only player in the country to have won the gold medal both as a player and as a coach. He was a member of the gold medal-winning team in the 1956 Olympics and was chief coach of the team that won the gold in the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Balkrishan went to Australia in 1965 to train the women’s national squad. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser was so impressed with him that he went on record praising Balkrishan Singh’s coaching abilities.

He was the first coach to experiment with the concept of total hockey in India. He first put this concept into use during the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Total hockey, in his view, was hockey which should be played like basketball — attack together and defend together.