HT This Day: May 29, 1958 -- India wins two more gold medals; sprint double by Milkha Singh

Hindustan Times

28-05-2025

Tokyo: India's star sprinter, Milkha Singh, in another great performance today won the 200 metres title to complete a magnificent double in the Asian Games here.
In what the young Services athlete himself termed a ' win or die ' race, Milkha Singh breasted the tape a fraction of a second ahead of Pakistan's Abdul Khaliq, Asia's fastest runner, to equal the Games record of 21.6 seconds set up by M. Shariff Butt of Pakistan in the second Asian Games at Manila four years ago. Yesterday he had won easily in the 400 metres with a timing of 47 seconds to give India their first Gold Medal of the Games.
This was the first time Milkha Singh was running with Abdul Khaliq and just as he had finished the race, he tripped and fell down prostrate on the ground bruising his knees.
The injury was not, however, serious, and Milkha Singh said later that it would not affect his running in 400 metres relay race tomorrow.
Possibly he could have improved on the Asian record, but Milkha Singh said just before the end his thigh muscles grew stiff and that slowed him down.
Another Gold Medal was won by India in the discus throw to take her total tally to four. This was not, however, as expected through Parduman Singh, the burly ' Samson ' of the Services, but through his colleague. Balkar Singh, whom Parduman Singh had easily surpassed in the National Games at Cuttack. Balkar Singh took the discus with a record throw of 47.66 metres (156 ft. 4-1 4 in.), easily improving on Parduman Singh's figures of 142 ft., 3-5 8 in, at Manila and 153 ft. 6-1 2 in, at Cuttack. Parduman Singh himself was third with a throw of 45.67 metres to give India their first Bronze Medal.
India have now won this event at all the three Asian Games.
At the end of the fourth day of the Games. India had won four Gold Medals, two Silver and one Bronze, compared to Japan's bag of 30, 18 and 12 and Iran's 7, 10 and 6.
Off form
India, however, lost the title in 110 metres hurdles they had won at Manila, when Siri Chand, then national champion, ran fourth to G. Razik of Pakistan. Razik completed the distance in 14.4 sec., lowering Sarwan Singh's record of 14.7 sec. at Manila. Siri Chand clocked 14.9 sec.
India's versatile representative in the decathlon, Muthiah. put in a creditable performance in the athletics of the event, but at the half-way period of this tough competition was third with Katsuki (Japan). each scoring 3, 468 points, Yang Chuan Kuang (Taiwan) was leading at the end of the day with a total of 4, 068 points and his colleague, Lin Te Sheng, was next with 3, 514 points.
Both Mary Leela Rao and Stephie D'Souza today qualified for the final of the women's 100 metres, but they will have to put in that extra reserve to be in the picture at the final. D'Souza was third in her heat with a timing of 13.1 sec, and Leela Rao was also similarly placed in the next heat, clocking 13.2 sec. The best timing in these heats was 12.9 sec. and in the preliminary heats D'Souza had actually timed 13 sec.
In light-weight boxing, Sunder Rao won against Burma's Yalchit on points.
But the football team was unlucky to be beaten by Indonesia by the odd goal of three. But this result does not affect India's entry in the next round of the Asian football, where they meet Hong Kong on Friday.
Clean fight
Sunder Rao waged a clean fight. In the first round he parried in the beginning, studying the opponent, but took the offensive soon. Yai was aggressive in the second round and repeatedly fouled, but Rao had the upper hand. In the final round, Rao unleashed a flurry of lefts and rights and won unanimously on points.
In the football match against Indonesia, for most of the time the game was in the Indonesian half. India pressed time and again with the team playing well but missed two gilt-edged chances when the ball hit the post.
Indonesia drew first blood when left-in Tjiang headed the ball into the goal in the 11th minute. India equalized through left-in Rahmatulla in the 16th minute of the second half. But Tjiang decided the issue when he shot Indonesia's second goal in the 35th minute.
Teams: INDIA: Thangaraj; Aziz and Latif; Kempaiya, Ahmed Hussain and Noor; Banerjee, Goswami, Damodran, Rahmatulla and Balaram.
In the quarter-finals on May 30, the matches will be: China vs. Israel, Hong Kong vs. India, the Philippines vs. Indonesia, and Viet-Nam vs. South Korea.
The semi-finals and finals will be played on the succeeding days.
Until today the 14 teams had been playing preliminary matches in four groups, with the two leading teams qualifying for the quarter-finals.
China, Hong Kong, Korea and Israel were all unbeaten. Those eliminated were Pakistan, Malaya, Burma, Japan, Singapore and Iran.