Left field

from India Insight:

Defying Hitler and jostling for Goering’s autograph

The Dutch broke his stick hoping to find a hidden magnet The Japanese suspected his stick was coated with glue Cricket legend Don Bradman gushed -- "He scores goals like runs in cricket" Adolf Hitler was so impressed with him that he offered him German citizenship and a post in the army

If an athlete's greatness is measured by the number of apocryphal stories about him or her, hockey wizard Dhyan Chand is in a league of his own.

Before every Olympic Games, India indulges in nostalgia about its hockey heyday and revisits the folklore around arguably the greatest hockey player ever.

One such story is about the controversy Dhyan Chand and the entire Indian contingent created by refusing to salute Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.

In their book "Olympics: The India Story" (Harper Sports), authors Boria Majumdar and Nalin Mehta shed some light on the episode.