There’s an actual website dedicated to athletes who “found” God. While I don’t mean to sound dismissive of their faith, it was still interesting to find the names of some Indian athletes in there, including Jacob Martin and a name from the past, Sebastian Xavier. Sebastian, who, you ask?
For anyone who, every morning, scoured the Sports pages of The Hindu during the early 90s, in a frenzied 20 minute attempt to take in every possible stat listed so as to not feel left out when the Sports freaks hammered it out in class, Sebastian Xavier was probably THE Indian swimming legend! Easily identified by that pool-friendly, convenenient bald pate, Xavier went onto achieve national fame setting long-standing records (his 8yr old 100m record was only broken in 2003). He eventually won the Arjuna award after some controversy, and still remains India’s best swimmer to date. For anyone who thinks that’s not saying much, I agree, but then this post is just a blast from the past kinda deal. And if you want to amuse yourself, check out this hypothetical chart that tries to evaluate how far behind in World Swimming we actually are!