Eventually, Milkha Singh finished fourth despite having broken the Olympic record in the process with a time of 45.6 seconds. This was a rare race where the first four finishers broke the existing world record. Hailed as the best ever, the race was captured in detail by the Hindu and the description deserves to be reproduced in detail:
The quarter mile event for men was the best ever seen in the recent track meet with America’s 28 year old Otis Davis cracking the world record by 3/10 of a second to claim the first place nosing out Germany’s Kauffman at the tape. South Africa’s Spence was third in 45.5 seconds and India’s Milkha Singh was placed fourth in 45.6 seconds…There was nothing for the Indians to be upset by this result as Milkha Singh was caught among the top notchers of the world in peak form. The race was a feast to the eyes with all six setting terrific pace right from the start to finish. In fact, Milkha Singh ran the best ever in his life since his previous best was 45.8 seconds set up recently in Paris when he beat Abdul Seye of France…Milkha Singh drew his best lane and everything was in his favour to produce his best. The finalists took an excellent start and it was Milkha Singh and Kinder who led first. Nearing the finish Davis overtook all with Kauffman close on his heels. Milkha Singh was then lying fourth behind Spence. Between Milkha Singh and Spence there was hardly a foot difference and had Milkha Singh run a well judged race instead of bursting out from the start he might have clinched the bronze medal.24
Like P.T. Usha two and a half decades later, the agony of Milkha Singh was to turn into an enduring legend of Indian sport. The loss still rankles and he remembers each second of the race, one that he describes as the best and also the worst moment of his life:
Going into the stadium for the final, I was relaxed and confident about my chances. But when I saw my competitors, tension within me mounted. And with each passing minute it increased. I drew lane five with South African Malcolm Spence to my left and the German Manfred Kinder on my right. As the race was a photofinish, the announcements were held up. The suspense was excruciating. I knew that I had made a fatal error. This may have been because I was all keyed up for the race and was extremely confident of winning a medal. After running furiously fast in lane five for the first 250 meters I slowed down a fraction. At that point I even looked back or maybe it was just a side-glance. But that fraction of a second decided my fate allowing others to overtake me. I could not cover the lost ground after that and that one mistake cost me the race and also the medal.25
‘After the death of my parents, that is my worst memory,’ says Singh, one of the most respected Indian athletes of all time. When pressed about his feelings after the race, he seemed to go back almost 50 years. ‘I kept crying for days,’ was his first reaction. A true sportsman, he had waited for the medal ceremony and congratulated Davis, Kaufmann and Spence. ‘But to tell you honestly, I hated doing it. If I had my way I would have snatched the medals off their hands and run away.’26 He was acutely distraught after the Games and had made up his mind to give up sport. It was after much persuasion that he began running again.
Milkha Singh had first established himself as an athlete of prowess in 1956 at the National Games in Patiala and two years later broke the 200 and 400 metres record in the national games at Cuttack. In the 1958 Tokyo Asiad, Singh continued to amaze, winning both the 200 and 400 metres. In the 1958 Cardiff Commonwealth Games, he won the 400 metres, beating South African sprinter Malcolm Spence. Spence, however, had the last laugh, beating Singh in Rome for the bronze medal.
There’s little doubt that Singh is the greatest male athlete India has ever produced. Despite losing his parents in the bloody aftermath of Partition, Milkha went on to earn the title of ‘The Flying Sikh’. His career was a fascinating prototype of P.T. Usha’s later—he ruled the Asian tracks in his heyday while facing heartbreak at the Olympics. In 1947, Milkha Singh had been one of the millions of refugees of Partition, escaping to India by hanging from the footboard of a crowded train. Interestingly, when he went back to Pakistan later in his career, he was on many occasions mobbed by fans and admirers, a sign of the respect he had earned for himself across the subcontinent.
STARS ALMOST FORGOTTEN
The other Sikh who almost made the Olympic stage his own was the 110-metre hurdler Gurbachan Singh Randhawa. He made it to the semifinal of his favourite event at Tokyo as the lucky loser and eventually finished a credible fifth in the final with a timing of 14.0 seconds. Bruce Kidd, who represented Canada in the same Olympics, remembers his interaction with Randhawa at Tokyo:
He was a talented youngster. He was full of life and verve and when I congratulated him on entering the final, he was a little stunned. He had not expected a Canadian athlete to congratulate him for having made the final. In the final, he ran a good race and may well have made the podium had he done a few things better. In fact, had he started well he would surely have been in the first three. It was a standout performance for India had hardly ever produced an Olympic league sprinter.27
This is how Randhawa remembers the event:
Tokyo in October had a fair amount of rain. We were praying for good weather as the track was of cinder. But despite the heavy downpour, it remained firm…Because of my lack of basic speed I was not good at starts. I took off rather slowly. But my hard training in different events had given me a lot of endurance and staying power. That came in handy. I covered a lot of ground between the fifth and eighth hurdles and almost caught up with the American Hayes Jones and Frenchman Marcel Duriez. I finished fourth in 14.3 seconds. But my painful wait was over when it was announced that I had qualified for the semi-finals as the fastest loser.28
In the semi-finals, Randhawa, Ezekiel writes, was pitted against the Unified Team of Germany’s John Heinrich, Duriez, Anatoly Mikhailov (USSR), Giorgio Mazza (Italy), Lazaro Betancourt (Cuba), Davenport (US) and Valentine Chistyakov (USSR). Chistyakov had two false starts and was disqualified. As Randhawa remembers, ‘It was a tough race. My joy knew no bounds when I looked at the giant scoreboard to see that I had finished second in a personal best of 14 seconds which was also the national record.’29
He thus described the final:
Once off to the start, everything was forgotten. Again I had a slow start but I surged smoothly ahead of Duriez. Up front, the Italians Giorgio Mazza and Giovanni Cornacchia were struggling. Duriez tripped on the final hurdle and that gave me a slight advantage, allowing me to catch up with him at the tape…I had barely recovered from the effort when I saw the scoreboard. Light flashed on it, but soon they were put off. When they came on again, my name was at the fourth spot. But they went off again. When the lights returned I was in the fifth spot. The timing was 14 seconds…I have no regrets. Maybe I should have broken the 14 second barrier. I have had my share of bad luck in life. But I must tell you that I was lucky at Tokyo to get into the semis as the fastest loser.30
While Randhawa is still hailed as one of the best sprint hurdlers the country has produced, the men who are almost forgotten in India’s sporting annals are the wrestlers Sudesh Kumar and Prem Nath. Both of them came close to winning medals in the freestyle competition of the tainted Munich Games in August 1972. In fact, on 31 August 1972, the Times of India had reported that India could hope for its first gold in Olympic wrestling if Kumar beat the Japanese Kiyomi Kato. Kumar had moved into contention by defeating Henrik Gal of Hungary in 3 minutes 17 seconds, using his pet hold of ‘nikaal’. In the 52 kg class, six wrestlers remained in the fray for the three medals, giving Kumar a great chance for a podium finish. Sushil Jain in the Times of India described his bout against Gal in detail:
In the opening second Hungarian Gal applied ‘dhobi paat’ to floor Sudesh but Sudesh was very swift to take a turn. Both wrestlers were on equal terms with two points each. In the second round Sudesh did not wait for Gal’s attack. It soon was very difficult for Gal to counter Sudesh’s hold. Sudesh gave no chance to Gal, lifted him and put him on the floor very neatly.31
And just like Rebello, fate was again
st Kumar in his bout against the Japanese. In this bout, which he eventually lost on points, a string of refereeing decisions went against him, decisively influencing the course of the contest. Sudesh was on level terms with his opponent in Round 1, with a point each. ‘An undue warning to Sudesh and a point to Kiyomi turned the trend of the bout. Sudesh had to take the offensive, which gave ample chance to Kiyomi to play safe…Sudesh trailed behind by three points to one in the seventh minute. He tried a beautiful nikaal, which was countered and Kiyomi got another point.’32
In the dying minutes of the contest, Sudesh had almost floored Kiyomi, but time robbed him of victory. Soon after the bout, the secretary general of the Wrestling Federation of India, Dewan Pratapchand, raised an objection about bad refereeing but for some reason did not lodge a formal protest. Had India filed a formal complaint against the referee, it might have been a different story.33
Premnath, competing in the Olympics for the first time, had raised medal hopes by defeating the Argentine Naggiolio in the 57 kg class. He had applied the ‘multani’ on his opponent and had floored him in four minutes 17 seconds. Had he defeated Richard Sandero of the United States in Round Five, he would have been certain of either gold or silver. However, he failed to stand up to Sandero and was trailing 2–14 when he was finally floored. In his semi-final, which followed his defeat against Sandero, Premnath, a teenager of 17, was injured and carried off on a stretcher. Both Sudesh and Premnath finished fourth.
Sushil Jain ends his report on India’s wrestling challenge at Munich with an interesting observation:
This was the first time I saw an Indian visitor to the wrestling arena and he was Milkha Singh, who has been encouraging our wrestlers. Besides WFI officials none from the Indian camp including the Chef De Mission and the Government of India observers have ever cared to visit the wrestling matches.34
The third Singh who made an Olympic final after Milkha and Gurbachan was Sriram, who finished seventh in the final of the 800 metres at Montreal in 1976. A protégé of the dynamic Ilyas Babar, one of the best Indian athletics coaches of all time, Sriram moved to middle-distance running at Babar’s insistence. He won silver at the Bangkok Asian Games of 1970 and followed it up with a gold at Tehran in 1974. However, Montreal was surely his finest hour, though he failed to win a medal.
That Sriram was a medal prospect was evident when he won a practice meet at Montreal days before the start of the Games.35 Most leading runners had participated in this meet and Sriram gained valuable confidence from his performance. This was on show when, running in the first lane of the opening heat at Montreal, Sriram set a scorching pace to lead the field at the end of the first lap with a timing of 51.35 seconds. He continued with the good run for the next 300 metres before the American Richard Wohlhuntr, favourite to win gold at Montreal, overtook him. While the American finished first in this heat with a timing of 1 minute 45.7 seconds, Sriram with a career best of 1 minute 45.80 seconds finished second.36
He ran a strategically bad semi-final and was in fact very close to missing out on a final berth, allowing competitors from America, Britain and Cuba to stay ahead of him.
Allowing himself to be boxed, which a front runner like him never relishes, Sriram had to stay content in the fourth position, but with only five meters for the finish, James Robinson from the United States put in a tremendous burst all but overtaking the Indian…Indian observers waited with bated breath for the result for to the naked eye it seemed the American, a world class runner, had just about made it but the wonderful world of electronics which leaves nothing to chance put the Indian a hundredth of a second or so ahead. There was a burst of cheering in the Indian camp when the result was flashed on the giant board. None looked more delighted than Sriram’s mentor Ilyas Babar…37
In the final, as in the heat, Sriram set a blistering pace and led the field in the first 400 metres with an amazing time of 50.85 seconds, faster than the eventual gold medal winner Alberto Juantorena of Cuba. It was in the home stretch that he faded away and ultimately finished seventh with a timing of 1 minute 45.77 seconds. Juantorena, who won a gold medal with a world record timing of 1 minute 43.50 seconds, attributed his success to the pace set by Sriram Singh.
THE FIRST, CHAK DE GIRLS
Twenty-seven years before Chak De India was released, the first Indian women hockey players made it to the Olympics, and perhaps those early pioneers would empathize with the trials and tribulations of the fictional players in the film. When women’s hockey was first introduced at the Moscow Olympiad in 1980 as a medal sport, India was one of the six teams that contested for honours. The other nations in the fray were Zimbabwe, USSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Austria. India began its campaign by defeating the Austrians 2–0 at the Young Pioneers stadium in Moscow. Despite the victory, coach Kartar Singh was dissatisfied. Speaking to the media, he declared, ‘I would say what you saw was 50 per cent of the true capabilities of the team’.38 Interestingly, the Indian girls began with the battle cry ‘Sat sri akaal’, as their male compatriots had done at Moscow. A fairly large contingent of Indian women, some of them Moscow residents, were seen in the stands supporting their team.
In their second match, the Indians beat the Poles 4–0. Yet again, their performance was below par, a fact attested to by their coach. ‘Frankly, they played worse today than against Austria. They are not clicking the way they should, not combining well at all.’39 Despite their unconvincing performances, they had won a large number of fans, evident from the following observation by K. Datta in the Times of India: ‘The Indian girls’ performance might not have satisfied the team officials or a few other critics. But it cannot be denied that their two wins so far have won them increasing respect of many a visitor to Moscow’s hockey stadiums’.40
India’s campaign was derailed in round three when, in an unexpected result, the Indians lost a close contest to Czechoslovakia 1–2. The defeat, more than the performance of the Czechs, was a result of some atrocious umpiring errors. The Indians were shocked at the two penalty corners awarded to the Czechs, one of which resulted in the winning goal nine minutes from finish. Antonina Tsetlina, a Soviet lady umpire, awarded the penalty corner. Kartar Singh went ballistic against this decision and suggested that an umpire from a country very much in the race for honours had been posted for the match although there were several umpires from ‘neutral’ countries available. However, in a show of sportsmanship, the Indians did not lodge a formal complaint with the organizers.41
Following this defeat, the Indians rallied brilliantly and put up a fighting performance against eventual winners Zimbabwe, drawing the contest 1–1. This left the Indians in second place, with just one match to be played. Despite some bad umpiring decisions yet again against Zimbabwe, the Indians, the Times of India reported, ‘fought gallantly all the way against a very fit looking Zimbabwe side…It was a creditable performance under the added strain of unpredictable whistling’.42
In their last encounter against the Russians, the Indian girls frittered away all the good work done against Zimbabwe and the loss meant that they were out of medal contention. Eventually they finished fourth in the competition.
THE AGONY OF P.T. USHA:
THE SECOND NATIONAL HEARTBREAK
At Los Angeles, history of sorts was made when the Indian Olympic Association picked five women in a contingent of eight athletes. Of the five, P.T. Usha had impressed the most, having won the 400 metres hurdles in a pre-Olympic meet by defeating some of the world’s best, including Debbie Flint of Australia and L. Mazie of USA. Her timing of 55.8 seconds may have been slightly higher than her best but it was certainly enough to make her a sure finalist at Los Angeles.43
Expectedly, Usha sailed through to the semi-finals without trouble, finishing second behind USA’s Judy Brown. She ran a good race in the second lane, cleared the hurdles without trouble and finished off strongly to bring cheer to the faces of the Indians in stadium.44
The semi-finals saw Usha at her best. Running in the
second semifinal, she won convincingly with a time of 55.54 seconds, beating Judy Brown, who finished second with a timing of 55.97 seconds. K. Datta reported in the Times of India that the afternoon timing of the semi-final suited Usha, who changed her tactics and preferred not to surge ahead from the start. It was only on the home stretch that Usha put in a last-ditch effort, leaving the others behind. Her timing was the third best among all the finalists and she had certainly emerged a strong medal prospect by the time of the final.45
The story of how P.T. Usha missed out on a bronze in the final is now part of Indian sporting folklore. The melodrama of her loss ushered India into a state of mourning and it is best to describe the race as it was then reported in the press:
P T Usha came as close as one hundredth of a second to breaking India’s medal drought in the Olympic Games. The finish had to be replayed again and again on the giant screen at the Los Angeles memorial Coliseum before the results were declared…For the third place Usha was beaten by the last desperate lunge by Romania’s Cristina Cojecaru who was credited with a timing of 55.41 seconds. Usha’s timing was officially shown as 55.42.46
In fact, to make sure nothing was left to chance, the Indians lodged a formal protest claiming third place for Usha. However, the jury, justly, did not agree. The medal ceremony was delayed to make sure every doubt had been cleared. After the event, Usha retreated to her room in the Olympic village without speaking a word to anyone. Her silence said it all. It was a tragedy that continues to haunt her even today. As she later recounted, for the first few minutes she didn’t even realize that her dream had ended. It was only when reality dawned that she felt an emptiness that she had never felt in her life. Her Olympic dream had been shattered, as it appeared, due to her own inexperience.
There’s little doubt, however, that P.T. Usha had done herself and her country proud. She was only the fourth Indian athlete and the first woman from the country to have figured in an Olympic track and field final. As one contemporary report noted:
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