Among the numerous talented athletes and sportspersons produced by India, Gurbachan Singh Randhawa is considered as one of the most resourceful athletes of all time. Starting from the very root level of school and college competitions, he was successful throughout his life. In Punjab University, he was considered as a star athlete because of his excellence in running hurdles, in high jump and also in a lot of other Track and Field events. However, later he decided to stick on to decathlon as his coach advised him.

Traditionally, the family of Gurbachan Singh Randhawa is a sporting family. His father was a very well known athlete in Punjab in his time. It was only for his father why Gurbachan decided to take on athletics as his favourite sport. He followed his father`s footsteps and also took hurdling seriously. Randhawa achieved national success at the age of only 21. At the 1960 Delhi National Championships, he broke down the previous national record made by Cheema Muthiah with a tally of 5,793 points. His remarkable versatility also stunned the spectators as he won the high jump, javelin and 110 metres hurdles as well in the Championship. In addition, he broke four previous national records within a span of only two days.

The national record that Randhawa made in the event of Decathlon where he achieved 6,912 points remain there as it is for a long period of 12 years and one of his very own trainees, Vijay Singh Chauhan broke the record. Randhawa`s timing of 14.0 seconds in the 110 metres Hurdles was recorded manually. However, the IAAF also "accepted" an automatic timing of 14.09 later. In the year of 2001, another Punjabi athlete Gurpreet Singh set a time of 14.07 at Lucknow and Naunidh Singh lowered the mark to 14.05 in 2005 at Hyderabad. Most of the people think and believe that if he did get the facilities of modern time in his days, Randhawa would definitely reach the world heights in his own event, Decathlon. Anyway, he was very grateful to the Hungarian coach Joseph Kovacs, who was a visiting coach at the National Institute of Sports in Patiala as the coach taught him the art of warming-up.

After being very successful in the national level, Gurbachan Singh Randhawa did mark his presence in the international arena as well. At the 1962 Asian Games held in Jakarta, Randhawa proved that nobody in the continent was better than him in the tough ten-event discipline. His tally of 6,739 points ensured him the gold while silver medallist Shosuke Suzuki of Japan was trailing by a big margin of almost 550 points. However, due to an unfortunate shoulder injury after that championship in Jakarta, he was forced to switch from decathlon to the 110 metres hurdles.

Gurbachan Singh Randhawa was 4 years senior to the Flying Sikh Milkha Singh and he also got the opportunity to compete comprehensively in Europe before the 1964 Olympic Games held in Tokyo. This opportunity made his task to compete in the big event easier. He was only 25 years old when he took part in the Olympics and four years earlier, he competed in Rome also. He was honoured when he bear the flag of the Indian contingent at Tokyo. The line-up for the 110 metres hurdles in the Championship was really extraordinary. A total of 37 competitors from 23 nations were vying for the eight places in the final.

The process to decide the finalists was a little interesting. There were five heats out of which the first three athletes from each heat and the fastest loser of the heats could qualify for the semi-finals. In the heat, Randhawa was announced as the fastest loser to qualify for the semi-finals. In the semi-finals Randhawa was pitted against the Unified Team of Germany`s John Heinrich, Duriez, Anatoly Mikhailov and Valentine Chistyakov of USSR, Giorgio Mazza from Italy, Lazaro Betancourt of Cuba and Davenport from US. As he had clocked better than three of his rivals in the heats, he was confident of making it to the final. He ran very hard and finished second in the semi-finals with a personal best timing of 14 seconds.

In the final that was staged just 45 minutes later, Gurbachan Singh Randhawa got two Americans, one Soviet, a Frenchman and three Italians as his rivals in the line-up. The Italians were battling hard with the Americans for supremacy. Though Randhawa tried his best, he came to finish the run in the fifth spot. The American Jones won the race with a timing of 13.6 seconds. Another American, Lindgren got the second place in 13.7 seconds and Anatoly Mikhailov of USSR finished third also in 13.7 seconds, the same time clocked by the silver medallist. It can be said undoubtedly that India has not got an athlete of his class till today after the retirement of Randhawa. However, the Indian people are always hopeful to have another Gurbachan Singh Randhawa in very near future.