The Sports Journalists Federation of India in association with the Tamil Nadu Sports Journalists Association (TNSJA) on October 24 honoured S. Thyagarajan, the ‘high priest’ of Indian hockey journalism at a warm, informal function at his home in Alwarpet.
A citation and a medal were presented to him for his services to Indian sports journalism.
Thyagarajan, now 83, and retired since 2014 started his career with the Indian Express in Madras in 1961 and switched over to The Hindu the following year.
He served The Hindu newspaper with distinction for over half a century, his CV including covering six Olympics, nine Asian Games competitions and nine hockey World Cup tournaments besides several other international meets.
Though he could write with equal felicity on all sports, it was his writing on hockey that made him well known internationally.
He served on the committees of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) and the Asian Hockey Federation – AHF.
Thyagarajan was a former president of both SJFI and TNSJA
The function was attended by a dozen active and retired journalists and the gathering included V. Baskaran, the captain of the Indian team that won the gold medal at the Moscow Olympics in 1980.
Later, two other senior sports journalists, V P Vijaykumar who was a veteran at The Indian Express, a K K Nagar resident, and T R Ranganathan who worked for The Hindu and is a Kasturba Nagar resident, were also honoured by the SJFI.
- By Partab Ramchand
