Milkha Singh, in all his interviews, almost without fail, used to recount his pleasure in running. He used to race with trains barefooted. A child of partition, he grew up to be a legend with sheer grit.

But Milkha was no exception. Indian Olympic team has always been full of members who qualified to match the rigorous athletic standards that the Games demanded. And most of them couldn’t even afford the basic gear that their chosen event demanded of them to wear.

Take the case of Revathi Veeramani, for instance. Orphaned at 7, she was brought up by her grandmother. A daily wage earner, the grandmother had initially refused to allow Revathi to be trained, fearing it would cost her money that she couldn’t afford.

Part of the 4x400 meter Indian contingent, Revathi was spotted by her coach K. Kannan at a district level competition when she was 17. Kannan found it tough to convince Revathi’s grandmother that she had no need to worry about financing her training. And yes, Revathi too used to run barefoot. In fact, she used to find running shoes a challenge to her performance. She is now 23.

Or take the case of Mary Kom. Daughter of tenant farmers in Manipur, she won her place in the world of women’s boxing and is today a legend entirely of her own making.

Why shouldn’t we talk about Deepika Kumari in this context? Daughter of an auto-rickshaw driver, she couldn’t afford a proper archery set. She grew up using homemade bamboo bows and arrows. Her life as an archer started with Arjun Archery Academy. The real break came when she got a chance to join the Tata Archery Academy in Jamshedpur. She is now ranked world number one in archery.

Though Dola Banerjee, the 2007 world champion, had a reasonably comfortable life, brought up in Baranagar, in the northern suburb of Kolkata, she too had a middle-class upbringing. She went to a good school and trained at a local archery club.

The point to note here is that they shine as examples of how one can win against all challenges thrown by life, provided one is determined enough to reach one’s life goal.

But determination is not enough. Even Arjuna needed Dronacharya. So did the flying Sikh. Milkha Singh is quoted to have said something to the effect that to succeed, the role of coach is important. “… You can achieve anything in life. It depends on how desperate you are to achieve it.” This was one of his famous refrains that invariably were followed by the stress on the role of a coach.

Revathi, when she was spotted at 17, lacked the finesse to reach her current status. Neither did she achieve what she ought to have had achieved given her talent at that age. She needed K. Kannan to bring that out of her. She needed to be trained to wield the talent into an instrument of success.

From the Flying Sikh to Revathi, the history of Indian achievers cannot just be counted with the number of medals. It has been a trail of challenging the odds that life throws at us. It has been a story of Dronacharyas and Arjunas. It has been a story of teachers with empathy and students who were willing to give their all, unconditionally, at the asking of their coachers. It has been a story of willingness and determination to rise above one’s own station to achieve with the inherited talent.

It has been a saga that needs to be emulated in the various aspects of our lives, even in business, especially in microfinance.

The story of the Olympics is not about winning. It’s about competing with fairness and bringing out the best of the endowed talent and being humane. Let us wish the Indian contingent our best, and may the best win.