Milkha Singh, also known as The Flying Sikh, is a former Indian track and field sprinter who

was introduced to the sport while serving in the Indian Army. He was the 1
st
Indian male athlete to
win an individual athletics gold medal at a 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.
The race for which Singh is best remembered is his fourth-place finish in the 400 metres final
at the 1960 Olympic Games, which he had entered as one of the favourites. He led the race till the
200m mark before easing off, allowing others to pass him. Various records were broken in the race,
which required a photo-finish and saw American Otis Davis being declared the winner by one-
hundredth of a second over German. Singh's fourth-place time of 45.73 became the Indian national
record and held for almost 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". In July 2012, The Independent said that "India's most revered
Olympian is a gallant loser" and noted the paucity of success 20 medals achieved by Indian
competitors in the Olympic Games despite the country having a population in excess of one billion.
Milkha Singh was born on 20 November 1929 according to records in Pakistan, although other
official records, various state 17 October 1935 and 20 November 1935. His birthplace was
Govindpura, a village 10 kilometres from Muzaffargarh city in Punjab Province, British
India (now Muzaffargarh District, Pakistan) in a Sikh Rathore Rajput family. He was one of 15
siblings, eight of whom died before the Partition of India. He was orphaned during the Partition,
when his parents, a brother and two sisters were killed in the violence that ensued. He witnessed these
killings.
Escaping the troubles in Punjab, where killings of Hindus and Sikhs were continuing, by
moving to Delhi, India, in 1947, Singh lived for a short time with a married sister and was briefly
imprisoned at Tihar jail for travelling on a train without a ticket. His sister, Ishvar, sold some
jewellery to obtain his release. He successfully gained entrance on his fourth attempt, in 1951, and
while stationed at the Electrical Mechanical Engineering Centre in Secunderabad he was introduced
to athletics. He had run the 10 km distance to and from school as a child and was selected by the army
for special training in athletics after finishing sixth in a compulsory cross-country run for new
recruits. Singh has acknowledged how the army introduced him to sport, saying that "I came from a
remote village, I didn't know what running was, or the Olympics"
He represented India in the 200m and 400m competitions of the 1956 Melbourne Olympic
Games. His inexperience meant that he did not progress from the heat stages but a meeting with the
eventual 400m champion at those Games, Charles Jenkins, both inspired him to greater things and
provided him with information about training methods.