Clean sweep: Rudraneil Sengupta writes on India at the Paralympics
How are we sweeping up so many medals in Paris? It comes down to tales of true grit, and lessons in how even a little infrastructure can change the game.
Sheetal Devi takes aim. Her left eye is shut, her right eye calm and flat on the target, the eyebrow raised just a bit. The fletching of the arrow rests on her lips, the bow is held in place by her right foot, which arches over the frame like a ballet dancer’s.
She releases the arrow, which buries itself into the black dot at the centre of the target with a satisfying thunk. The crowd gathered at the formal gardens of Les Invalides in Paris erupts in joy.
A new sporting hero was born at the 2024 Paralympics. The France and Barcelona footballer Jules Kounde posted a clip of Devi hitting the bullseye, alongside a starry-eyed emoji.
Devi is 17. She was born with severely underdeveloped arms, the result of a rare medical condition called phocomelia. That didn’t stop her from climbing trees as a child, and climbing trees gave her the phenomenal strength and agility needed to be an archer without arms.
In Paris, Devi missed out on an individual medal, losing by a solitary point in her quarterfinal encounter. She did team up with 39-year-old Rakesh Kumar later, to win the team bronze. But anyone who has watched her in action knows this: there is something deeply thrilling and intensely cathartic about watching her shoot. The ease and grace with which she goes about her process, the economy of movement, the power she generates, mark her out as a future star.
Devi and Kumar’s bronze was one of eight medals won by Indian Paralympians that day, in an extraordinary spree for India.
Let that sink in: In roughly 10 hours of competition, on September 2, India won eight medals.
In all, India has won 27 medals at this Paralympics, including six golds (as of Saturday). That's more than twice as many medals as India won in its entire Paralympic history before Tokyo.
The pre-Tokyo tally stood at 12; in Tokyo, India won 19.
Indian para-athletes have been on an unprecedented rise ever since, not just winning medals but doing so repeatedly.
Avani Lekhara, a 22-year-old paraplegic, defended her Tokyo gold in the air-rifle range, becoming the first Indian woman to win two gold Paralympic medals. Sumit Antil, 26, that extraordinarily powerful javelin thrower, broke the world record in his category thrice to take the Tokyo gold; in Paris, he broke his record twice more, and won gold again.
Two things have stood out as I have learnt more about these young men and women. First, many were injured in road accidents. Lekhara was 11 when a car crash caused grievous spinal damage; Kumar contemplated suicide to reduce the difficulties his family faced after his spine was damaged in a car crash; Antil was an aspiring wrestler before a bike crash led to an amputation and the end of a dream.
India consistently tops the list of countries with most fatalities from road accidents. None of us needs statistics to tell us how unsafe the roads are.
The second thing that struck me was the obvious question: How did we get so good at para-sports? Well, Lekhara’s coach is Suma Shirur, who is also the high-performance director for India’s Olympic shooting squad. Antil trains at JSW’s Inspire Institute of Sport, where Neeraj Chopra trains too. Some of the badminton medallists for India train at the Pullela Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad.
There is increased government funding, and more para-athletes are being taken more seriously and brought in to train at top facilities.
They deserve every bit of it and more.
(To reach Rudraneil Sengupta with feedback, email rudraneil@gmail.com)
