FOR THE RECORD: 1952 OLYMPIC GAMES: participant water polo (first goal for his country); 1948 OLYMPIC GAMES: participant (100m freestyle & water polo); 1951 ASIAN GAMES: gold (100m freestyle, first gold medal for India), bronze (4x100m freestyle relay, 3x100m medley relay).
Sachin Nag is an Indian legend in the record books but was never given his legitimate place to galvanize India’s popular culture in sport. Even after seven decades, his records are unparalleled, but he never got his due until now.
He was born into a humble Bengali family in Varanasi in the summer of 1920. As a child he took to the Ganges like a fish to water. His competitive swimming career began in quite a dramatic fashion. One day in 1930 in Varanasi, a holy city in present-day state of Uttar Pradesh, his older brother, Bholanath, a freedom fighter in India who had been jailed before, was being chased by police. To help his older brother avoid capture, 10-year-old Sachin led the police on a wild goose chase, by jumping into the River Ganges. Perhaps not coincidentally, a group of swimmers were gathering in the middle of the river to begin a 10 km swimming race. To escape, he swam out to the swimmers and to everyone’s astonishment, he finished third in the race. It was the start of something special.
The best Indian swimmers came to Varanasi, and the untrained Sachin beat them all. Seeing his talent, they invited him to live and train in Calcutta. His career blossomed in 1937 when he moved to Calcutta. Within just one year, he was breaking all national records. He even began dreaming of competing in the Olympic Games. He competed in 6K and 10K races in the Hoolghly River and began playing water polo. Back then no one was aware of hydrodynamics, but Sachin used water hyacinths to build speed and used wooden planks on the pond walls for more thrust in speed.
Post WWII India was a time of great violence in India, and in January 1947 while returning home from training, a stray bullet struck him on his right leg, shattering his femur. After the surgery, the surgeon told him to rest for two years, but stubborn Nag lasted only six months. Recovering from a serious injury wasn’t the only hurdle he had to overcome. Back in the late 1940s, athletes representing India were responsible for a great deal of the expenses required to compete. To pay for his trip to London, he took up work washing vehicles in the early hours before training. Despite this work, five months before the Olympics, he realized he was 1,000 rupees short. Nag was about to give up on his dream. Instead, he approached his childhood friend, singer Hemanta Mukhopadhyay, who immediately arranged for a fund-raising campaign, including a musical performance at the Uttara Cinema Hall in North Calcutta. Nag finally had enough money to compete at the Olympics. He finished a respectable sixth place at the 1948 London Olympics in the 100m freestyle event.
Nag also played for the Indian water polo team and scored four goals in a 7–4 win over Chile. Sachin’s moment of glory, however, came three years later at the inaugural edition of the Asian Games in New Delhi. On March 8, 1951, Nag won the gold medal in the 100m freestyle and in the audience watching him win the first gold medal for India was Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. According to media reports, Nehru was so overjoyed that he broke protocol, embraced Nag, and presented him with the red rose from the breast pocket of his coat.
Besides winning gold in the 100m freestyle, Nag also won bronze medals in the 4×100m freestyle relay and the 3×100m medley relay. In addition, he would go on to compete in the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games, representing India in water polo.
Following his incredible achievements in the pool, Nag would train future generations of Indian swimmers, including Arati Saha, the first Asian woman to cross the English Channel in 1959, and Nafisa Ali, a national champion in the early 1970s, a well-known Indian actress, politician, activist, and former beauty-pageant titleholder.
Sachin Nag passed away on August 19, 1987. Looking at a photograph of the muscular six-footer, one can only wonder what a swimmer he might have been had he had the coaching and opportunities afforded swimmers in the West or Japan at the time. Sachin Nag is the first Honoree from India inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.