chandigarh a piece of indian hockeys golden history seems to have been lost for good courtesy the apathy of sports authority of india sai officials who have no clue about the priceless memorabilia donated way back in 1985 by legendary olympian balbir singh sr the donated items meant for a proposed museum which never came about included an olympic blazer medals and rare pictures the 91yearold triple olympic goldmedallist maintains that in 1985 he had donated his medals and memorabilia to the then sai secretary on being told that they would be displayed in a show window at the then proposed national sports museum balbir sr said he was later told that the museum was to be opened in delhi to inspire the youth of the nation but an enquiry about the items before the 2012 london olympics at the request of the olympic museum revealed that sai officials were clueless about their whereabouts nearly a year back union sports minister sarbananda sonowal had visited balbir singh sr at his residence in chandigarh and sai officials while claiming ignorance about the entire matter had promised a thorough enquiry in the meanwhile a group of lawyers from the punjab and haryana high court came carried out rti campaigns in the sai offices in new delhi and the national institute of sports nis patiala which revealed some astonishing facts the rti replies of these authorities revealed shocking mismatch of statements but more importantly also an affirmation of the fact that the articles were indeed received by these authorities from balbir singh sr balbir sr had said that with the exception of his olympic medals and the padma shri award everything else including his captains melbourne olympic blazer 36 medals including tokyo asiad 1958 silver and over 100 rare photographs were among the items to have been donated by the gold medal winner of london 1948 helsinki 1952 and melbourne 1956 olympics balbir sr said he was later told that the museum was to be opened in delhi to inspire the youth of the nation toi photo according to balbirs maternal grandson kabir bhomia the international olympic committees olympic museum wanted the melbourne games blazer to be a part of the official london olympics exhibition where he was the only indian and the only hockey player chosen among 16 icons across all participants in all disciplines in 116 years of the modern olympics era that is when we contacted sai to get that blazer as nanaji balbir sr had nothing with him in london apart from olympic medals but sai officials said that they didnt know about the whereabouts of the treasure kabir said balbir scored five goals in indias 61 victory over the netherlands in the gold medal game of the 1952 games it is a disgrace these articles are a part of our national sporting heritage if this can happen to the priceless memorabilia of the greatest player produced by india then i dont think it can be seen