NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — India’s Fauja Singh, believed to be the world’s oldest distance runner, has died in a road accident aged 114, his biographer said Tuesday.
Singh, an Indian-born British national, nicknamed the “Turbaned Tornado,” died after being hit by a vehicle in Punjab state’s Jalandhar district on Monday.
“My Turbaned Tornado is no more,” Fauja’s biographer Khushwant Singh wrote on X.
“He was struck by an unidentified vehicle in his village, Bias, while crossing the road. Rest in peace, my dear Fauja.”
Singh did not have a birth certificate but his family said he was born on 1 April 1911. He ran full marathons (42 kilometers) until the age of 100.
His last race was a 10-kilometer event at the 2013 Hong Kong Marathon when 101, where he finished in one hour, 32 minutes and 28 seconds.