Milkha Singh (born in the midst of 1929 and 1935),[a] a.k.a. The Flying Sikh, is an Indian former track and arena sprinter who was introduced to the sport even if serving in the Indian Army. He was the single-handedly Indian athlete to win an individual athletics gold medal at a Commonwealth Games until Krishna Poonia won the discus gold medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. He also won gold medals in the 1958 and 1962 Asian Games. He represented India in the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome and the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. He was awarded the Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian honour, in salutation of his sporting achievements
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The Flying Sikh
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The race for which Singh is best remembered is his fourth-place finish in the 400 metres firm at the 1960 Olympic Games, which he had entered as one of the favourites. He led the race till the 200m mark back mitigation off, allowing others to gathering him. Various history were damage in the race, which required a photo-finish and motto American Otis Davis innate declared the winner by one-hundredth of a second anew German Carl Kaufmann. Singh's fourth-place times of 45.73 became the Indian national sticker album and held for around 40 years.
From beginnings that saw him orphaned and displaced during the Partition of India, Singh has become a sporting icon in his country. In 2008, journalist Rohit Brijnath described Singh as "the finest athlete India has ever produced".[1] In July 2012, The Independent said that "India's most revered Olympian is a gallant loser" and noted the paucity of operate at that time 20 medals achieved by Indian competitors in the Olympic Games despite the country having a population in excess of one billion.[2]
Early life
Milkha Singh was born on the subject of 20 November 1929 according to chronicles in Pakistan,[3] although subsidiary attributed chronicles various express 17 October 1935[4] and 20 November 1935.[5] His birthplace was Govindpura,[6] a village 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from Muzaffargarh city in Punjab Province, British India (now Muzaffargarh District, Pakistan) in a Sikh Rajput relatives. He was one of 15 siblings, eight of whom died in front the Partition of India. He was orphaned during the Partition, when his parents, a brother and two sisters were killed in the exploitation that ensued. He witnessed these killings.[1][6][7][8]
Escaping the troubles in Punjab, where killings of Hindus and Sikhs were continuing,[7] by disturbing to Delhi, India, in 1947, Singh lived for a immediate era as soon as the intimates of his married sister[6] and was briefly imprisoned at Tihar jail for travelling previously suggestion to a train without a ticket. His sister, Ishvar, sold some jewellery to lead his general pardon.[8][9] He spent some era at a refugee camp in Purana Quila and at a resettlement colony in Shahdara, both in Delhi.[6]
Singh became disenchanted once his moving picture and considered becoming a dacoit[b] but was on the other hand persuaded by a brother, Malkhan, to attempt recruitment to the Indian Army. He successfully gained retrieve on the order of the order of his fourth attempt, in 1951, and though stationed at the Electrical Mechanical Engineering Centre[10] in Secunderabad he was introduced to athletics. He had control the 10 km estrange to and from studious as a child and was selected by the army for special training in athletics after execution sixth in a compulsory fuming-country run for added recruits.[7][8] Singh has conventional how the army introduced him to sport, axiom that "I came from a unapproachable village, I didn't know what dispensation was, or the Olympics".[1][7]
International career
He represented India in the 200m and 400m competitions of the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.[11] His inexperience intended that he did not concern ahead from the heat stages but a meeting since the eventual 400m champion at those Games, Charles Jenkins, both inspired him to greater things and provided him gone insinuation practically training methods.[1]
In 1958, Singh set chronicles for the 200m and 400m in the National Games of India, held at Cuttack,[10] and plus won gold medals in the same activities at the Asian Games. He later won a gold medal in the 400m (440 yards at this time) competition at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games as soon as a become very old of 46.6 seconds.[9] This latter carrying out made him the first gold medalist at the Commonwealth Games from independent India.[8] Before Vikas Gowda won the gold in 2014, Milkha was the unaccompanied Indian male to have won an individual athletics gold medal at those Games.[12]
Singh was persuaded by Jawaharlal Nehru to tolerate his memories of the Partition time to race successfully in 1960 closely Abdul Khaliq in Pakistan, where a late gathering-race comment by the in addition to General Ayub Khan led to him acquiring the nickname of The Flying Sikh.[c] Some sources accustom that he set a world folder of 45.8 seconds in France,[10] nimbly prematurely the Rome Olympics in the connected year but the qualified report of the Games lists the scrap book holder as Lou Jones, who ran 45.2 at Los Angeles in 1956.[4] At those Olympics, he was supple in a stuffy-rule utter race in the 400m competition, where he was placed fourth.[7][8] Singh had beaten all the leading contenders go to the fore than Otis Davis, and a medal had been anticipated because of his cordial form. However, he made an error considering leading the race at 250m, slowing afterward to in the belief that his pace could not be sustained and looking round at his fellow competitors. Singh believes that these errors caused him to lose his medal opportunity and they are his "worst memory".[10] Davis, Carl Kaufmann and Malcolm Spence all passed him, and a photo-finish resulted. Davis and Kaufman were both timed at a world-stamp album breaking 44.9 seconds, while Spence and Singh went below the pre-Games Olympic stamp album of 45.9 seconds, set in 1952 by George Rhoden and Herb McKenley, behind grow primeval of 45.5 and 45.6 seconds, respectively.[4][9] The Age noted in 2006 that "Milkha Singh is the unaccompanied Indian to have blinking an Olympic track autograph album. Unfortunately he was the fourth man to gain as a consequences in the thesame race"[13] but the credited Olympic credit remarks that Davis had already equalled the Rhoden/McKenley Olympic stamp album in the quarter-finals and surpassed it behind a period of 45.5 seconds in the semi-finals.[4]
At the 1962 Asian Games, held in Jakarta, Singh won gold in the 400m[9] and in the 4 x 400m relay.[14] He attended the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, where he was entered to compete in the 400m, the 4 x 100m relay and the 4 x 400m relay.[5] He did not believe portion in either the 400m[15] or the 4 x 100m relay[d] and the Indian team of Milkha Singh, Makhan Singh, Amrit Pal and Ajmer Singh were eliminated plus than they done fourth in the heat stages of the 4 x 400m.[17]
There have been claims that Singh won 77 of his 80 races,[10] but these are spurious. The number of races in which he participated is not verified, nor is the number of victories, but he drifting a 400m race at the 1964 National Games in Calcutta to Makhan Singh[18] and he did not finish first in any of his four races at the 1960 Olympic Games[4] or the aforementioned qualification races at the 1956 Olympics.
Singh's period in the 1960 Olympics 400m firm, which was manage on a cinder track, set a national autograph album that stood until 1998 taking into consideration Paramjit Singh exceeded it upon a synthetic track and subsequent to adequately automatic timing that recorded 45.70 seconds. Although Singh's Olympic outcome of 45.6 seconds had been hand-timed, an electronic system at those Games had appreciative his sticker album to be 45.73.[19]
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