Wes Paes, Olympic and Hockey World Cup Bronze Medalist, Passes Away

Wes Paes, the Renaissance man of Indian sports and a bronze medalist in the Olympics and Hockey World Cup-winning team, has passed away. A versatile player, Wes Paes also played divisional cricket, football, and rugby.

• Dr. Wes Paes, a member of India’s bronze medal-winning hockey team at the 1972 Munich Olympics, a member of the 1996 Olympic bronze medal-winning team, and father of tennis player Leander Paes, passed away in Kolkata at the age of 80.
• A shrewd midfielder of the Indian hockey team in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was known for his vision, composure, and ability to blend defensive and attacking play.
• The most important moment of Wes Paes’s sporting career came at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where he helped India win a bronze medal, in addition to the bronze medal won at the first Hockey World Cup held in Barcelona in 1971.

Early Life of Wes Paes

• Born on 30 April 1945 in Goa, Wes Paes completed his schooling in Bengaluru, where he was an excellent athlete and excelled in hockey.
• In 1963, he moved to Kolkata to study medicine and, like his father and three siblings, became a doctor.
• He studied at St. Xavier’s College and Presidency University before completing his MBBS from the prestigious Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital under the University of Calcutta.

Hockey Career of Wes Paes

• He represented legendary clubs like East Bengal and Mohun Bagan and proved himself as a talented player, winning several domestic titles such as the Beighton Cup and the Calcutta League.
• This earned him a place in the Indian hockey team for the Hamburg International Cup in Germany in 1966, where he made his international debut. At that time, he was still a pre-medical student.
• This was the beginning of his nearly decade-long international career, during which he became one of the national team’s most reliable midfielders.

Other Sports

• A versatile sportsman, Wes Paes also played divisional cricket, football, and rugby. Rugby, in particular, became his lifelong passion.
• He represented the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club in the sport and later served as president of the Indian Rugby Football Union from 1996 to 2002.

Medical Assistance

• Due to his medical expertise, he worked with athletes from various sports, helping them recover from injuries and advance their careers.
• He also worked as a medical advisor for the All India Tennis Association (AITA) and the All India Football Federation (AIFF), and as the team doctor of the Indian Davis Cup team.
• Wes Paes’s expertise was also widely seen in cricket, as he introduced anti-doping and age-verification systems as Sports Medicine Advisor for the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) between 2001 and 2009.
• Later, he led the BCCI’s national anti-doping efforts. Administrators like Ratnakar Shetty credited him with changing the BCCI’s approach to player welfare.

Leander Paes

• His son, Leander Paes, went on to become one of India’s most prestigious tennis players. Leander ended India’s 44-year wait for an individual Olympic medal by winning the men’s singles bronze at Atlanta 1996 and won 18 Grand Slam doubles titles.