In 1933, Gland's home team, the Jhansi Heroes played in and won the Beighton Cup, which Dhyan Chand himself believed was the most prestigious of Indian hockey tour¬naments. He was gravely ill with dysentery at the time, to the point where his life was in danger. He would later state that the final of this tournament between Calcutta Customs and Jhansi Heroes was the best match he played in his life. Calcutta was a great side then with a lot of the stars of Indian hockey on the team. Jhansi had Dhyan Chand, his brother Roop Singh and Ismail, but no one else. Jhansi won the match with some luck, due to a misunderstanding in the Calcutta defence which led to a goal.
Upon returning to India, Chand had resumed his duties in the army. In December 1935, the IHF again decided to stage the inter-provincial tournament to select the Olympic team. Dhyan Chand was again denied permission to participate. When the papers reported the names of the players for the Olympic squad with Dhyan Chand's name missing, there was a public outcry. He was finally selected without the formali¬ties of a tryout. A few days before leaving for the Olympics, Dhyan Chand married Janaki Devi.
Upon the team arriving at the Olympic village in Berlin, many Indian freedom fighters present in the country asked them to enter waving the Congress Tricolour instead of the Union Jack. But this was pre-independence India and they risked being disqualified were they to do so:
The Indian team suffered a shock defeat to a much improved Germany in a trial match. They realised that they needed to substitute Masood at centre half with Dara who was back in India! An emergency telegram was sent to India. Luckily, Dara, who was on duty with the Indian Army, was released and flew to Berlin on a small aircraft with many stops for fuel en route. He arrived just in time.
India won its first match against Hungary four to nothing. India also won the rest of the group matches. They beat the USA seven to nothing in a match in which Chand scored two goals. They beat Japan nine to nothing with Chand scoring four goals. In the semi-final against France, they won ten to nothing with Dhyan Chand scoring four goals. Germany also pulled through and thus, it came to be that India and Germany were to meet in the final.
On the morning of the final match, the team was nervous since they had been defeated the last time they had faced Germany With the team assembled in the locker room prior to the match, team manager Pankaj Gupta produced a Congress tricolour. The team
reverently saluted it, then prayed and marched onto the field. The German team lim¬ited the India side to a single goal in the first half. It was a thrilling match. After the break, Dhyan Chand came back and played barefoot, getting even speedier! The Indian team took over, easily defeating Germany eight to one. Germany played a rough game in the second half, and their goal keeper collided with Dhyan Chand, breaking one of his teeth. But Dhyan Chand returned after receiving first aid and promptly resolved to teach them a lesson. The Indians kept reaching a scoring position in the German goal zone and then pulling the ball back out, to prove their point. The goal scored by Germany in the final was the only goal conceded by India in the tournament. Chand was the top scorer with three goals.
Dara scored two, while Roop Singh, Tapsell and Jaffar scored one each.
After seeing his prolific(present in large numbers or quantities) play at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Adolf Hitler offered Dhyan Chand—who was by then a Major in the British Indian Army—German citizenship and a posi¬tion in the German Army with a promotion, but he refused.
The final match was included in the Leni Riefenstahl film on the 1936 Olympics, Olympia. In three Olympic tourna-ments, Dhyan Chand had scored thirty-three goals in twelve matches.