Kolkata

Kolkata (Bangla: কলকাতা, Hindi: ??????), is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal and was capital of British India until 1912. The city's name was officially changed from Calcutta to Kolkata in January 2001. Despite the new name being phonetically closer to the Bengali version, many people and organizations still refer to it as Calcutta. In Hindi, the city is referred to as Kalkatta.

Sports

Football (soccer) is a passion for many Calcuttans with the national clubs, Mohun Bagan Athletic Club and East Bengal Club being the best known teams. The current, and most successful, cricket captain of India Sourav Ganguly is a Calcuttan.

Related Topics:
Football - Mohun Bagan Athletic Club - East Bengal Club - Cricket - Sourav Ganguly

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Kolkata has produced summer Olympic medallists such as:

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• Norman Pritchard (Athletics - 1900)
• Richard James Allen
• Leslie Claudius (Field Hockey - 1924, 1928, 1936)
• Gurbux Singh
• Dr. Vece Paes (Field Hockey - 1980)
• Leander Adrian Paes (Olympic Bronze medallist at singles tennis in 1996 Olympics; also Wimbledon and French Open Men's Doubles champion, with Mahesh Bhupathi; and Mixed Doubles Champion 1999 and Wimbledon Mixed Doubles Champion 2003, with ace Martina Navratilova)

Other sportspersons who have won laurels for Kolkata include:

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• Gobor Goho (World Amateur Wrestling Championship USA 1900-2)
• Manotosh Roy (former Mr Universe - 1950s)
• Manohar Aich (former Mr. World - 1950s)
• Mihir Sen (Guinness Record holder of being the first person to swim across the English Channel in 1948 and the seven straits across all major continents)
• Jyotirmoyee Sikdar (1998 Asian Games Gold medallist in four events in racing)
• Arjun Atwal (PGA Golf champion 2003)
• Dibyendu Barua and Surya Sekhar Ganguly (current FIDE Chess Grandmasters)
• trans-continental wizards Mohammed Salahuddin Choudhury and his wife Neena, have the acknowledgment of the Guinness Book of World Records for the first and fastest circum-navigation of the world by car ? under the rules applicable in 1989 (in a 'Contessa Classic' 1989 car) and 1991 (in a Nissan jeep), and thereby embracing more than an equator's length of driving (40,750 km or 24,901 road miles) in 69 days, 19 hours and 5 minutes in 1989 and in 39 days and 20 hours in 1991 respectively.