Milkha Singh’s allegation
In an exclusive interaction with The Times of India, the Flying Sikh Milkha Singh has made a huge allegation. He believes that foreign coaches are responsible for bringing in banned substances to India which subsequently affects many young athletes.
On the same topic, he reiterated his fears, “Doping is spreading like cancer. In my time there was no use of banned substance. Nowadays, dope abuse is spreading even at school competitions. I wish to ask, from where do these substances enter India? Who gives them to athletes?”
Singh strictly condemned those responsible for spreading this vice in the country and called for strict action to the offenders. As mentioned, Singh believes that foreign coaches and doctors are responsible for this menace.
A dream which he hopes will come true
Moreover, in the insightful interview, Mr. Singh spelt out his heart’s wish. “My dream is to see an Indian athlete win a gold medal in Olympics before I close my eyes.” Though he appreciates the advent of other sports, he longs for India to produce medals in athletics.
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Milkha Singh also believes that the performance abroad is majorly judged by the performance of the athletics team. He reminisced on his own journey and said that hard work is the only way to succeed. There were instances when he had to run barefoot and spend days at the railway station being rejected from the Army thrice.
Emphasis on coaching and commitment by the authorities
The Indian athletics legend also lamented the lack of ‘vision, strategy and implementation’ for athletes in India. Even though there has been improvement in infrastructure, the commitment to help athletes still leaves a lot to be desired.
Milkha Singh, who narrowly missed out on a medal in the 1960 Rome Olympics, finishing fourth emphasized on good coaching. “My coach would ask me do one extra lap of 400m even if I was dead tired after countless laps of running. Only will power, character, discipline and hard work produce champions,” he signed off.
