Is Jahangir Khan the greatest sportsman ever?

[Greenstorm]

Greatest Pakistani sportsman and easily one of the greatest sportsman of all time. He is truly an inspirational figure for anybody. It was his elder brother's death(passed away due to heart attack while playing squash) which pushed Jahangir to take squash seriously at a young age so that he can further his brother's dream.

This guy used to live and breath squash. He used to trained for 14 hours everyday(involved 10 mile running, swimming, gym, Squash drills and practice matches), for nearly 10 years and was perhaps the most fittest person on the planet.

 

[Major]

wayne gretzky
micheal jordan

 

[Rayyman]

wayne gretzky
micheal jordan

Lol at Gretzky )

 

[Chrish]

I am not sure if he is Pakistan’s greatest sportsman ever tbh..

 

[Majid Khan]

Actually there is another Pakistani sportman with an even greater and longer unbeaten run than Jahangir Khan, as amazing as that sounds - will reveal the name shortly, if anyone else doesn't guess correct.

 

[humzy]

you would first have to define what greatest sportsman constitutes.

I think Jordan would be in the mix for the greatest sportsman ever too.

 

[TM Riddle]

Actually there is another Pakistani sportman with an even greater and longer unbeaten run than Jahangir Khan, as amazing as that sounds - will reveal the name shortly, if anyone else doesn't guess correct.

Does the name start with H and ends with Z?

 

[Chrish]

The greatest sportsman argument is futile tbh because there is no way to properly quantify and compare the talent pool that is available for certain sports in given country. For example, how many people from Pakistan take Squash seriously as in comparison to let's say Cricket?

Similarly it's much harder to dominate Soccer vs Cricket (you won't see anomaly like 70s-80s WI team or 2000s Aussie team in Soccer since each Soccer country plays it at extremely high level due to available talent pool being much greater.

 

[Majid Khan]

Does the name start with H and ends with Z?

No not that champ.

The Lion of Lahore , Gama Pehalwan, the greatest wrestler of all time, had an unbeaten record in a career over 50 years, and more than 5000 matches/fights. Beat that!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gama

 

[TM Riddle]

No not that champ.

The Lion of Lahore , Gama Pehalwan, the greatest wrestler of all time, had an unbeaten record in a career over 50 years, and more than 5000 matches/fights. Beat that!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gama

Gama Pehalwan to some of us would always remain Indian.
He's considered a legend on this side of the border.

 

[enkidu_]

No not that champ.

The Lion of Lahore , Gama Pehalwan, the greatest wrestler of all time, had an unbeaten record in a career over 50 years, and more than 5000 matches/fights. Beat that!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gama

Agree.

And the way he dominated world champion Zbyszko is also quite something. In the rematch at Patiala, under the maharaja's eyes, Gama cemented Zbyszko to the ground in 42 seconds !

I don't think I've ever seen such no-contest between a supposed world champion and some "regional champion" (Rustom e Hind), as Gama was perceived by the Westerners. In fact he had more challenge from other Punjab's wrestlers, like 6'9'' feet tall Raheem Bakhsh Sultaniwala, than he ever had with Euro or American "champions".

His brother Imam Baksh Pahalwan was also a champion on his own, here on the right :

Also, what it takes to make a champion :

Sir Atholl Oakley once described Gama’s typical day. Gama would rise regularly at 5am. He would swim and stretch for two hours, followed by a breakfast of mainly raw vegetables and 8 glasses of milk. Between 7am -10am, he would do callisthenics, consisting of Indian style squats in very high sets of 100 reps, often 2000 (20 sets) per day, followed by Cat/Hindu style push-ups done similarly. He would then work with buckets of very thick clay. He would work his hands all the way in, until they were about mid forearm deep, and squeeze the clay between his fingers and hands for 30 minutes. This took him to roughly 11am, when he would eat another light fruit snack and have an hours sleep. Between 12 noon to 2pm he would practice various individual moves, not the whole repertoire but just the bits he wanted to work on. Gama would sleep again from 2pm to 4pm. From 4pm to 8pm he would wrestle in various ways, generally wrestling two opponents at a time. He would take dinner at 8pm, which was his main meal, rest for an hour, and drink another 8 glasses of milk. Gama would then to sleep at 10pm sharp.

Gama Pehalwan to some of us would always remain Indian.
He's considered a legend on this side of the border.

Do you consider the Kapoor's, Kohli's, etc to be Pakistanis ?

The Great Gama was from a Kashmiri Muslim (Butt) family based in Punjab, which means that if he was in India during the Partition, he'd have 98% of getting killed (like the other Muslims of Punjab in Indian Punjab or Kapoor's, Kohli's, ... Hindus/Sikhs in Pak Punjab), so claiming him as Indian, esp. from Hindu nationalists who do it regularly on internet to boast about some Hindu god, when he himself purposefully went into Pak, is quite cynical.

 

[CricketCartoons]

Agree.

And the way he dominated world champion Zbyszko is also quite something. In the rematch at Patiala, under the maharaja's eyes, Gama cemented Zbyszko to the ground in 42 seconds !

I don't think I've ever seen such no-contest between a supposed world champion and some "regional champion" (Rustom e Hind), as Gama was perceived by the Westerners. In fact he had more challenge from other Punjab's wrestlers, like 6'9'' feet tall Raheem Bakhsh Sultaniwala, than he ever had with Euro or American "champions".

His brother Imam Baksh Pahalwan was also a champion on his own, here on the right :

Also, what it takes to make a champion :







Do you consider the Kapoor's, Kohli's, etc to be Pakistanis ?

The Great Gama was from a Kashmiri Muslim (Butt) family based in Punjab, which means that if he was in India during the Partition, he'd have 98% of getting killed (like the other Muslims of Punjab in Indian Punjab or Kapoor's, Kohli's, ... Hindus/Sikhs in Pak Punjab), so claiming him as Indian, esp. from Hindu nationalists who do it regularly on internet to boast about some Hindu god, when he himself purposefully went into Pak, is quite cynical.

gama ji look like a typical pehelwan from UP/Bihar, there are plenty of those in local akharas. And same unaesthetic build, with a protruded but firm belly and thinner legs. Gama ji, looks every inch an indian.

 

[TM Riddle]

Agree.

And the way he dominated world champion Zbyszko is also quite something. In the rematch at Patiala, under the maharaja's eyes, Gama cemented Zbyszko to the ground in 42 seconds !

I don't think I've ever seen no-contest between a supposed world champion and some "regional champion" (Rustom e Hind), as Gama was perceived by the Westerners. In fact he had more challenge from other Punjab's wrestlers, like 6'9'' feet tall Raheem Bakhsh Sultaniwala, than he ever had with Euro or American "champions".

His brother Imam Baksh Pahalwan was also a champion on his own, here on the right :

Also, what it takes to make a champion :







Do you consider the Kapoor's, Kohli's, etc to be Pakistanis ?

The Great Gama was from a Kashmiri Muslim (Butt) family based in Punjab, which means that if he was in India during the Partition, he'd have 98% of getting killed (like the other Muslims of Punjab in Indian Punjab or Kapoor's, Kohli's, ... Hindus/Sikhs in Pak Punjab), so claiming him as Indian, esp. from Hindu nationalists who do it regularly on internet to boast about some Hindu god, when he himself purposefully went into Pak, is quite cynical.

Great Gama would always hold a special place in our hearts.

 

[enkidu_]

gama ji look like a typical pehelwan from UP/Bihar, there are plenty of those in local akharas. And same unaesthetic build, with a protruded but firm belly and thinner legs. Gama ji, looks every inch an indian.

Everyone somehow looks Indian from Kabul to the Andaman Islands, but Indians ofc themselves are the most diverse so that neighboring states don't have the same phenotype.

 

[CricketCartoons]

Everyone somehow looks Indian from Kabul to the Andaman Islands, but Indians ofc themselves are the most diverse so that neighboring states don't have the same phenotype.

You are right. Indian is an umbrella term and quite broad where small differences are ignored. A few days ago I was at a hospital frequented by afghans and arabs, and saw a kid with blue eyes. Asked him if he was afghan, he pointed fingers at the floor to suggest he is from india. Although Gama chacha looks like a typical pehelwaan from UP bihar, which is like a common indian variety, not the more exotic indian varities.

 

[SensiblePakFan]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="und" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NewProfilePic?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NewProfilePic</a> <a href="https://t.co/d1AWeUekFM">pic.twitter.com/d1AWeUekFM</a></p>— Jahangir Khan (@JK555squash) <a href="https://twitter.com/JK555squash/status/1221080704227971075?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Wah Jee wah looking great . The conqueror. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/legend?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#legend</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/bestsportsmanever?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#bestsportsmanever</a> <a href="https://t.co/f6BLP691d3">https://t.co/f6BLP691d3</a></p>— Wasim Akram (@wasimakramlive) <a href="https://twitter.com/wasimakramlive/status/1221435687850913793?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 26, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Incredible transformation.

 

[SensiblePakFan]

 

[MenInG]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of the hard work you already did. I want to share this lesson with the youth, never give up! I dedicate this award to the resilient people of Pakistan, my fans & everyone who was part of my journey. <br>Pakistan zindabad! <a href="https://t.co/6NZHHVRZY8">pic.twitter.com/6NZHHVRZY8</a></p>— Jahangir Khan (@JK555squash) <a href="https://twitter.com/JK555squash/status/1638845377444212736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 23, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>