Raja Randhir Singh was bridge between sport’s past and future

Raja Randhir Singh, who died on Wednesday aged 79, belonged to an era when Indian shooting existed far from the spotlight. It was the time before Olympic medals, corporate backing and shooting academies. Competing in five Olympics between 1968 and 1984, he was among India’s earliest international regulars in trap shooting and won the country’s first Asian Games gold in the discipline in 1978. But his success can’t be measured merely in medals. Singh came to embody a continuity between amateur-era Indian sport and a more globalised Olympic future. He did so first as an athlete who understood the sport intimately, and later as a figure who could represent India within international federations.

Singh was not regarded as a visionary reformer in the modern sense, nor did he cultivate the image of a strongman administrator. Instead, his value lay in relationships, continuity and access. Athletes across generations, from the pre-liberalisation era to India’s Olympic medallists, viewed him as someone who could quietly get things done.

Born into Patiala royalty, son of former International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Raja Bhalindra Singh, Singh moved through international sporting circles with ease. The Olympic movement historically drew heavily from aristocracy, old institutions and diplomatic networks. Officials across Asia frequently described him as a “consensus-builder” and a stabilising figure. India’s sporting rise owed much to athletes on podiums, but it also depended on figures like Randhir Singh.