The 28-year-old Manjit Singh, soon to be 29, may just have pulled off the biggest upset of these Asian Games yet.

Out of nowhere, the streak of blue that was Singh, ended India’s 36-year-wait for an Asian Games gold medal in the men’s 800 metres. Not since Charles Borromeo in 1982, had an Indian man won the half-mile gold. Singh joined an elite band of Indian gentlemen, including the legendary Sriram Singh to have conquered this event.

Singh had qualified eighth and hadn’t even won in domestic competition all year. This wasn’t supposed to happen, it just did. The son of a milk seller from the Jind district of Haryana, the same place of origin as Indian international cricketer Yuzvendra Chahal, Singh overcame considerable obstacles to stand atop the podium.

Surprising outcome

The race in itself was a strange one. Record holder Jinson Johnson had broken Sriram Singh’s 1976 Montreal Olympics national record, India’s longest standing one, in athletics at the Inter-State Championships in Guwahati.

Johnson had also broken Bahadur Prasad’s 25-year-old mark in the 1500 metres earlier this year at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, finishing fifth in a highly competitive field. At Guwahati and at Patiala earlier this year in the Federation Cup, he had bested Singh. By most accounts, Singh was in Indonesia as Johnson’s number two, no more.

Qatar’s Abubakar Abdalla had broken rank first, while leading the pack and looked to speed away with Abraham Rotich of Bahrain in tow. Johnson was third and hot on the heels of the chasing pack while Singh was sandwiched in the middle, sitting sixth for the majority of the race.

As Johnson chased Abdalla down, Singh saw his chance and capitalised on it. First in his path was Johnson, who was gaining on the front two at the same time as him. With the race in its final stretches, Singh came shoulder to shoulder before powering through to the finish.

About to finish, Singh looked left, looked right to ensure that nobody had indeed caught up with him, typifying the unbelievable outcome of the race. When he realised what he had done, he proceeded to kneel and kiss the track in celebration.

Singh’s coach since 2016, Amrish Kumar spoke about planning for the final 80. “We knew that he would stick in till the end. Our concern was how he would go about the final flourish. We had been training for the final bit for a while now,” Kumar told Scroll.in.

From desperation to gold

The runner started his career in 2008, but had fallen on tough times recently. As a 20-year-old at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, he had qualified from his heats but had failed to progress from the semi-finals. He was nonetheless considered a promising runner.

At the Asian Athletics Championships in 2013 in Pune, Singh finished fourth. It was then that Kumar says that injury hampered Singh’s progress. “A muscle injury kept him out of action for a long period and he lost a considerable amount of pace in that time.”

Initially offered a job on a contract basis by Public Sector Unit ONGC, Singh had been unemployed since 2016, barely making ends meet and not finding sufficient funds to train till Kumar found him.

“His father, a milk seller, is the only earning member of his family. They had no other livelihood. He told me please help me, sir. I have no way of training by myself and no money. I took him under my wing then,” said Kumar.

Back in the national camp in 2018, Singh, who once lost his way, made a comeback at the Federation Cup in Patiala where Kumar says the Haryana runner made his intent clear by setting the pace, only for Johnson to pip him to the post. This correspondent was present in Patiala and there is no denying that it was a close race between the two. But hardly anyone could see the outcome in Jakarta coming.

Consistent performances such as another one in Guwahati propelled him to the Asian Games squad. “I told him he just needed to do enough to qualify. There was no reason for us to stretch during the qualifying rounds. He followed the routine well,” chuckles Kumar.

Indeed, he did. On Tuesday, Manjit Singh scripted the unlikeliest of triumphs and irrespective of the future, India’s first track gold at these Games in Jakarta and Palembang is unlikely to be forgotten anytime soon.