Thangavelu Mariyappan, India’s brightest medal prospect at Tokyo Paralympics 2020 has delivered. Thangavelu has bagged a Silver in the High Jump F63 event and along with him, Sharad Kumar has grabbed the Bronze in the same event. This achievement from the World Class athletes comes just one day after Devendra and Sundar won dual medals in the Javelin Events. With this dual of medals, India has, for the first time hit the double-digit mark at the Paralympic stage.
Mariyappan Wins Silver and Sharad Wins Bronze: –
This event was the most awaited event as India had 3 great medal prospects, Thangavelu Mariyappan the gold medalist from last time, Sharad Kumar, the Asian Para Game Gold Medalist, and Vinod Bhati the Bronze medalist at Rio. This anticipated event began at 3:55 pm. Every athlete seemed to be a great contender as everyone was jumping close to 1.85m. There was a total of 9 athletes ranging from Egypt, Ghana, the USA to Poland. The top contenders, however, belonged to India.
Each athlete was given 6 attempts at the jump and the best performance of every athlete was considered for evaluation. Mariyappan fouled on 2 of the 6 occassions! However, his performance from the 4 attempts itself was enough to secure silver. Mariyappan’s jumps were as follows; 1.77m, 1.80m, 1.83m, 1.86m. On the other hand, Sharad was able to make 3 clean jumps. His attempts were as follows; 1.77m, 1.80m, 1.83m.
India at Paralympics: –
Varun Singh Bhati, the other Indian ended up at the 7th position. However, Sharad fulfilled his void. This takes India’s tally of medals to 10! This is the first time that double-digit medals are coming back to India in either the Olympics or the Paralympics! This also takes India to the 30th position in the Paralympic table, India’s best-ever finish.
