His trademark Multani was later used to ground many rivals — Australian B Hamms was stretchered out at the London Olympics — but not before he was roughed up at the Lucknow nationals by wrestlers who refused to believe he was a serious competitor.

MAD SCRAMBLE
According to author Sanjay Dudhane, who has penned the biography, Olympicveer KD Jadhav, that small frame would have even cost him his trip to Helsinki, since the then Chief Minister of the state and his officials sized him up and decided for themselves that this wrestler wasn’t big enough to head to the Olympics. They refused to help with government funding — a sum of Rs 3000 of the 12,000 required.

The amount was assembled after Jadhav gave up on the amount he intended to use to build a home for his family of eight children, and the principal of the Shahaji Law College Dabholkar — also the wrestler’s fan — mortgaged his house. The Tilak school headmaster Walavade donated three months of his salary, and his early mentor Belapure Guruji went around Satara collecting Olympic donation receipts from door to door. Finally, the Maratha Sahakari Bank loaned out Rs 3,000 and the deficit was bridged just in time for Jadhav to fly to Helsinki.

“The struggle was phenomenal, though Saaheb never lost hope, nor his focus,” Ranjit says.

Jadhav’s 6th-place finish at London — owing to his poor understanding of instructions in English — pricked him long and hard. The four intervening years were spent building on his strength since a rolling fall at London had betrayed a weakness, and brushing up on spoken English so that he wasn’t left clueless the next time.

... contd.