Kamaljeet Sandhu was the first Indian woman to win a gold medal at the Asian Games. She did it in the 400 metres in Bangkok in 1970, running 57.3 seconds and holding off Israel’s Aviva Balas, who was given the same time. More than half a century on, the race is still the starting point whenever the story of Indian women’s athletics is told, and Sandhu herself went on to shape the next generation as a national coach.
Name: Kamaljeet Kaur Sandhu (also spelt Kamaljit; married name Kooner) | Born: 20 August 1948 | Sport: Athletics | Event: 400 metres
A sporting family from Punjab
Sandhu came from a family where sport was part of everyday life. Her father, Mohinder Singh Kora, played college hockey and turned out alongside Balbir Singh, later a triple Olympic champion. She was the second of four sisters in a Punjabi family that followed the game closely.
She was educated at Scindia Kanya Vidyalaya in Gwalior and was an all-round sportswoman as a student. She played basketball at national level and field hockey at inter-university level before athletics took over. Running gave her something the team games did not: a way to measure herself against the clock and against the best in Asia.
The road to Bangkok
By the end of the 1960s Sandhu had become one of the leading quarter-milers in the country. Indian women had competed at the Asian Games since the 1950s, and there had been medals, but none of them had won gold. The 400 metres was not regarded as an Indian strength, which made what happened in Bangkok in December 1970 all the more striking.
Gold in 57.3 seconds
The final turned into a close contest between Sandhu and Aviva Balas of Israel, who was competing for Asia’s medals at the time. The two crossed the line almost together. Both were timed at 57.3 seconds, and the judges gave the gold to Sandhu. It was India’s first Asian Games gold by a woman in any sport.
The win made her a national figure overnight. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sent her a telegram of congratulations, and Sandhu spent a week as a guest of the state after she returned home. In 1971 she was awarded the Padma Shri.
Turin and Munich
In 1971 she ran at the World University Games in Turin and reached the final of the 400 metres. A year later she was part of India’s team at the Munich Olympics in 1972. Her entry was confirmed late and she went into the competition unsettled. She later said she had been psychologically very disturbed going into the event, and she went out in the heats.
Munich was effectively the end of her competitive career. She retired from running in 1973, still in her mid-twenties.
A long career in coaching
Sandhu stayed in the sport. In 1975 she joined the National Institute of Sports in Patiala as a coach, at a time when there were very few women coaches in Indian athletics. She was in charge of the Indian women’s sprint team at the 1982 Asian Games in New Delhi, where a young P. T. Usha won her first Asian Games medals.
Her own record has been passed many times since, but her place in the history books has not changed. Every Indian woman who has since won Asian Games gold on the track, from Usha to Hima Das, has followed the path she opened in Bangkok.
How she is remembered
For many years Sandhu’s achievement received less attention than it deserved. Indian athletics in that era was dominated by the stories of Milkha Singh and the men’s sprinters and throwers. Recent generations have rediscovered her, and the 1970 race is now regularly cited as the moment Indian women showed they could win at continental level.
Career record and honours
- Asian Games: gold, 400 m, Bangkok 1970 (57.3 seconds), the first Asian Games gold won by an Indian woman
- World University Games: 400 m finalist, Turin 1971
- Olympic Games: 400 m, Munich 1972 (heats)
- National-level basketball and inter-university field hockey player
- Retired from competition: 1973
- Coach, National Institute of Sports, Patiala, from 1975
- Coach of India’s women’s sprint team, 1982 Asian Games
- Padma Shri, 1971
