The legendary hammer and discus thrower from the 1960s and 1970s wore them well but none suited him more than that of “gentleman”.

While he will rightly be remembered as one of the best Malaysian throwers of his generation, the first thing that struck most people about him following his death yesterday was his warmth, courtesy and kindness.

Taiping’s triple SEAP and SEA Games hammer throw champion and national throws coach passed away at his daughter’s home in Melbourne, Australia.

The ironman, who had intense rivalry with his hammer throwing compatriot from Perak, Genda Singh, and discus great Danapal Naidu, was 89. He was wheelchair bound for the past three years.

PLBS Peyadesa, a top 200m and 400m sprinter from that era, remembers Dattaya as far more than merely a reassuring athlete and friend.

“He was so full of life and enthusiasm,” said the Olympian and former Taping Prisons officer. “He was a wonderful person, a marvellous character, a dedicated athlete and very much a family man.”

Peyadesa said in Dattaya’s peak years as a thrower, he was an intimidating figure but he was the archetypal gentle giant. “Approachable and friendly, he would always find the time to offer help or advice to fellow athletes.”

Dattaya, a former survey department employee, was uncoached, and according to Peyadesa he built speed, strength, explosive power and coordination all by himself to hurl the 7.2kg metal ball.

Peyadesa said they trained at the Taiping Prisons’ sports ground and that there were occasions when he helped retrieve the hammers to help speed things up for Dattaya.

He recalled the burly man doing the high jump and short sprints much to the amazement of other athletes.

Funnily, certain flawed listings have Dattaya as being in Malaysia’s 4x400m relay team that won the bronze medal at the Bangkok SEA Games in 1975.

When he was once asked by a journalist whether he had run with Peyadesa, S Sabapathy and Mariah Naidu in the event, he countered laughingly: “It’s me who is supposed to crack jokes about a very big man sprinting.”

To another question on whether he enjoyed intimidating and confusing his competition with his imposing physique, he said: “I simply give orders to my body and make everything coordinate.”

He was sometimes the funnyman, always the livewire, in Malaysian contingent, bringing smiles, spreading positive energy and guiding younger teammates on how to handle the pressure of being an international athlete.

Yet in his 20 years of selfless service to athletics, he was a fierce competitor on the field, even fiercer when it came to unfair treatment.

Team from Madras

Former sports journalist George Das recalled for all his experience at international level, Dattaya suffered a blow to his career in 1973 because he was an Indian.

He was among several Indian athletes who were denied participation in the inaugural Asian Track and Field Championships (ATF) in Manila.

Das said the late sprinter Sabapathy told him the then Malaysian Amateur Athletics Union (MAAU) president Ghazali Shafie was not happy that the team was made up of all Indians, calling them the “Madras team”.

“Dattaya was so furious that he brought down the door to his room in Maba House. His brutal punch knocked the door down,” said Das.

Sabapathy went public with an article in Das’s online publication, Sports Flame, saying Ghazali had promised them the ticket to Manila if they won gold at the SEAP Games in Singapore two months earlier.

He related that the Indian athletes were told by then MAAU secretary Anthony Rogers to break camp and return home two days before they were due to depart to the Philippines.

“All of us were angry, totally dejected and offended by the racial labelling. We felt let down and rejected by own country,” he wrote.

In Singapore, Dattaya defended his gold medal in hammer, beating off a challenge from the republic’s Eknath Mane, who won the event when it was first introduced at the Games in 1965.

His throw of 44.40m was better than the 41.24m recorded later by Khmer Republic’s bronze medallist at the ATF meet.

Peyadesa won the gold in the 400m and 4x400m with Sabapathy, Harun Rasheed, Hassan Osman. Sabapathy also won the silver medal behind Thai legend Anat Ratanapol in the 200m and bronze in the 4x100m with Sridaran Vellaiyathan, Maarof Hussein and Nor Azman.

The other Indians who performed creditably and were poised for the ATF were Karu Selvaratnam (400m hurdles silver), R Subramaniam (800m silver), A Ramasamy (1500m silver), M Arumugam (10,000m bronze) and R Yamunah ( women’s 1500m silver).

Sports administration guru A Vaithilingam, who led the national athletics team to the Games, said Dattaya was so determined to win his event and eventually an ATF berth that he was tensed up on arrival at the Toa Payoh camp.

“He and Genda were good friends but they never smiled at each other until their event was over, and became great pals again,” he said.

Genda, who took the bronze medal, had his national record broken by Dattaya at the 1971 SEAP Games. Dattaya broke his own hammer national record in Johor Bahru in 1975, only for Genda’s son, Semret, to set a new one five years later.

Dattaya, who secured two silver medals in discus at the 1965 and 1967 SEAP Games behind compatriot Danapal before becoming a force in hammer throw, grabbed his last gold medal at the regional games in 1979.

Malaysia’s dominance in the SEA Games hammer event flourished in the following years through Semret and Wong Tee Kue, both of whom scooped seven gold medals between them after Dattaya’s retirement.

Two sporting hulks

Like javelin master Nashatar Singh, there was no such thing as the impossible for Dattaya.

Both men are about 190.5cm tall and relished in their respective extremely technical and mind-racking events.

They put their brute strength to use in other sports as well, with both playing rugby for Perak in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Nashatar, a former Asian Games javelin champion, went on to become a national rugby player while Dattaya turned to football.

When Dattaya won his last hammer SEA Games gold in Jakarta in 1979, Nashatar was the national athletics coach.

Dattaya had another love – writing. The athlete who supplied sportswriters many stories during his sporting career was a freelance reporter for two local dailies, writing mainly on community issues in Taiping.