Milkha Singh: Man who made India gasp in wonder

Four decades ago Milkha Singh performed an incredible feat in the 400 metres event at the 1960 Rome Olympics where he finished fourth but broke the Olympic record.

Milkha Singh is a name that conjures the magical story of a soldier who ran the race of his life but missed an Olympic medal by a whisker.

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Place the "Flying Sikh" on any scale and he would top the billing. In many ways he was way ahead of his times and even now, there are people who would like to believe he was a miracle man.

How else to explain the deeds of this soldier who trained on near primitive conditions and ate just the ordinary food served to troops and yet built up on his ambitions to win a medal at the Olympics. In the end, he failed in his endeavour to finish among the top three, but won himself a place as an all-time great Indian athlete.

It is now four decades and more since Milkha Singh performed the incredible in the 400 metres event at the 1960 Rome Olympics. Though he finished fourth, he also broke the Olympic record of 45.9 seconds.

Milkha clocked 45.6 seconds while Ottis Davis (US) and Carl Kaufmann (Germany) tied for the top spot at 44.9 seconds. Malcolm Spence (South Africa) was just ahead of Milkha, clocking 45.5 seconds.

The Indian's run-up to the Games was something phenomenal. The Amateur Athletics Federation of India had invested in him wisely, sending him to Europe to get competition-fit.

And Milkha had a fantastic record, winning 77 of the 80 races he took part in. In those days, it was not a practice to send a specialist coach along with athletes on European tours. That is why it is all credit to Milkha as he groped his way in unfamiliar places, not knowing the language or the way of life of the people he ran with.

That Kaufmann and Spence finished ahead of him was something of an irony. Milkha had bested both in the run-up to the Games, beating Spence at the Cardiff Commonwealth Games in 1958.

This was in fact the competition that catapulted Milkha into world reckoning.

Rome was the making of Milkha as a world class athlete. It is there that he acquired the halo that has continued to glow all these years.

The British Empire and Commonwealth Games of 1958 had but confirmed his class and the Asian Games in Tokyo the same year, where he beat Abdul Khaliq of Pakistan in the 200 metres and set a new record of 47.0 seconds in the 400 metres.

But it was the performance in Rome that endeared him and gave added meaning to the title "Flying Sikh" that he earned during the India-Pakistan meet in Lahore in 1959.

He had, in the meanwhile, also won the Helms Trophy for his achievements on the track, the second Indian to win this was tennis maestro Ramanathan Krishnan.

Looking back at the race after all these years, Milkha is often quoted as saying that he made the mistake of looking back over his left shoulder while approaching the finish and that this cost him dearly.

The other reasons attributed for his not winning the race is the splitting of the semi-final and final into two days. Milkha perhaps also regretted not having tuned up by taking part in the 200 metres.

Milkha's international career spanned three Asiads and an equal number of Olympics. His Rome timing stood the test for nearly four decades. He was, during his heyday, the greatest Asian male athlete and considering his background and the facilities available to him in those days, it must be said that he had won more than one battle during his fine career.

Milkha did not receive the Arjuna Award because it was not instituted during his running days. He was, however, decorated with the Padma Shri, the country's fourth highest civilian honour.

Today, he is an avid golfer who religiously follows the career of his famous golfing son Jeev Milkha Singh.