mumbai the story goes that alex silveira beat milkha singh in a 400m race by a decent margin and the latter promised to avenge his defeat in a few months this was in the early 1960s milkha trained like he usually does and beat alex silveira by the same margin this was before the rome olympic gamessilveira 88 passed away on thursday he represented india in the 1958 tokyo asian games and the cardiff commonwealth games silveiras pet event was the 400m and was part of the famous quartet of milkha singh jb joseph and joginder singh who ran the 4x400 relaysilveira who was with western railway was known for his lighthearted nature and pleasant personality he was not the one who said oh i am so great says a former trainee and now coach frank alphonsowhen i won my first marathon he was kind enough to present me a tracksuit says alphonso despite the talent he had he was very humble and rooted to the ground says alphonso bala govind a prominent coach from mumbais athletic scene remembers silveira as somebody who was not very serious about training if he had trained there was no limits for his talent if he can beat milkha without virtually any training and by a margin of 20 metres then you can judge for yourselfsilveira was tall close to being a sixfooter was broad shouldered and ran with such strideshe was a sight to behold says bala govind he could have easily qualified for the rome games and even could have won the gold for us back then says bala govind seven years his junioranother former junior national 100m record holder jeetendra lotlikar says silveira thought him how to psyche the rival athletes he told us that half the battle was trying to psyche the rivals as athletes with lesser confidence tend to get overawed says lotlikarand yet he was such a humble and jovial character there were no dull moments on the track when he was around he would crack us up with his anecdotes he kept a very light mood in training says lotlikar