- Friday, April 19, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
LAST month, Indian badminton star PV Sindhu created history by becoming the only woman from the country to win two Olympic medals after she clinched bronze at the Tokyo Games. With her latest medal, India’s total medal count at the event went up to 12, the best ever.
On Friday (3), the 26-year-old’s feat was matched by one of her teen compatriots. Shooter Avani Lekhara won bronze in the 50 metre Rifle 3 Position SH1 in the ongoing Tokyo Paralympics to add to the gold she won a few days ago in the 10m Air Rifle SH1 event. The 19-year-old from Jaipur in the western state of Rajasthan hence became the first Indian woman to win two medals at the Paralympics.
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Playing in her maiden Paralympics, the wheelchair-bound Lekhara qualified second for the event with a score of 1,176, including 51 inner 10s. In the competitive finals, she totalled 445.9 points to finish ahead of Ukraine’s Iryna Shchetnik, who let her grip on the medal spot slip with a poor third shot of 9.9 in the elimination.
PV Sindhu becomes first Indian woman to win two Olympic medals
China’s Zhang Cuiping won the gold setting up a new Games record of 457.9, while German Natascha Hiltrop finished third with 457.1 in the final.
Paralympics: Teen Pradeep Kumar wins silver in high jump
Lekhara, who sustained spinal cord injuries in a car accident in 2012 which left her immobile, fired a world-record equalling total of 249.6, which is also a new record at the Paralympics.
Till now, Joginder Singh Sodhi was the only Indian participant at the Paralympics to have bagged multiple medals in a single edition. In the 1984 edition held both in the UK and the US, he won a silver and two bronze medals. The first came in shot put while the other two came in discus and javelin throw.
Devendra Jhajharia is the other Indian with multiple Paralympic medals but his three medals (two gold and a silver) came in as many editions. His golds came in the 2004 edition in Athens, Greece, and the 2016 edition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He won the silver in the ongoing edition.
