Fauja Singh, a torchbearer at the 2012 London Olympics and the world’s oldest marathon runner, died Monday in a hit-and-run, according to police in the northwestern Indian state of Punjab. He was 114.
Born in India in 1911, Singh lived much of his life in London. On Oct. 13, 2011, in Toronto, he set a flurry of world age-group records at a meet established especially for him, the Ontario Masters Assn. Fauja Singh Invitational.
Singh, nicknamed the “Turbaned Tornado,” ran the 100 meters in 23.14, 200 meters in 52.23, 400 meters in 2:13.48, 800 meters in 5:32.18, 1500 meters in 11:27.81, one mile in 11:53.45, 3000 meters in 24:52.47 and 5000 meters in 49:57.39. He was 100 years old.
“He rested between the events by sitting down and having a few sips of tea,” Ontario Masters official Doug Smith told the New York Times in 2017. “He was actually running — both feet off the ground.
“It was the most astonishing achievement.”
Singh became the first centenarian to finish a marathon three days later, completing the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 8 hours, 11 minutes and 6 seconds. He didn’t begin the race until 14 minutes after the starting gun because of the congestion of runners, so his official time was 8:25:17.
Guinness World Records wouldn’t recognize the feat because Singh didn’t have a birth certificate. India didn’t keep official birth records when he was born in 1911. The birth date on his passport was April 1, 1911.
A Punjabi Sikh, Singh moved to London in 1992 to live with an adult son after his wife, Gian Kaur, a son and a daughter died. He took up running two years later to alleviate his grief after the death of his fifth son, Kuldip.
“The villagers would tell one of his sons to take him to the UK because he would keep visiting the cremation ground and sit there for hours,” his biographer, Khushwant Singh, told NDTV.
Running soon became his passion. Easily identified by his long white beard and orange Sikh turban, Singh was honored with a letter from Queen Elizabeth II of England when he turned 100 and was the subject of a biography launched in the House of Lords.
In all, Singh completed nine marathons and ran his last competitive race in February 2013 when he was 101, finishing a 10K run in Hong Kong in 1 hour 32 minutes and 28 seconds.
Singh returned to India during the pandemic and was hit by a car Monday while on his daily walk in his home village of Beas Pind. He died in a hospital, his former coach Harmander Singh told the New York Times.
“We would always tell him that someone his age running in India would always run the risk of being hit given how reckless the driving here is,” Khushwant Singh said. “This is what ultimately happened, unfortunately,”
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