Guest Post by Nitin Sanker
What an amazing performance our Paralympians have delivered! What do you say to these numbers: 2012 (1 medal), 2016 (4 medals), 2020 (19 medals), and 2024 (29 medals)?
This is groundbreaking.
The Paralympians have, I think, finally silenced the doomsayers who kept belittling Indian sports by claiming that India never wins enough medals.
Well, look at the medal table. With 7-9-13 medals, we have finished in the top 20 nations of the world, above heavyweight countries like South Korea, Hungary, Belgium, and not too far behind Spain, Canada, and Germany. It’s a very respectable position.
But this event was incredibly inspirational, not just for our position in global Olympic sports but also for showcasing the disabled community of India, who are often invisible in our cities, which are not always disability-friendly.
For a community searching for their place in the sun in India—for every child born without arms, with cerebral palsy, blindness, or who is confined to a wheelchair. The Games demonstrated that they can make a place in the world. It showed that they can showcase their tenacity and spirit and make the world acknowledge their existence, their shining spirit, and the fire in their eyes.
With role models like the inspirational Sumit Malik (double gold in Tokyo and Paris), Mariappan (our first Olympian with three medals in three Paralympics and Avani, our female shooter who has won 2 gold and 1 bronze over the last two Paralympics), our team kept hitting so many personal bests at the Paralympics.
They shone like comets on the Paralympic stage. It’s not just about the medals but their tenacity, their never die character and that fearless spirit to showcase their best that moved me to tears. This was a team which never backed down, never said we are happy to be second best, a team which squeezed every inch of effort from our broken bodies, moved every unmoving muscle to achieve what may have seemed impossible
The ones that really stood out for me are Kapil Parmar, who won our first medal in blind judo, Sheetal, the world’s only armless female archer who won a bronze at just 17 in compound archery mixed team; Deepti Jeevanji, who won a bronze in the 400m in the intellectually disabled category and was so distraught when she finished third, possibly not realizing that a bronze is also a significant achievement.
Simran (200MT12) and Preethi (women’s 100m and 200m in T35), best friends who came to Paris and won 3 medals in track events. This is remarkable, especially when India had not won any medals in the Olympics or Paralympics for the last 100 years. Also, of course, all the seven gold medal winners who ensured that the Indian anthem was heard repeatedly in Paris.
What can I say at the end? Their eyes carried stars, their hearts burned like flames. They came to Paris with the hope to light up an unfeeling world. They have left handprints, footprints, and wheelchair marks all over the entire Paris Paralympics. They left us sports fans stunned, awed, and dazed. They carved their names into the record books and showed every disabled child in India a way, a dream, and a direction
Every medal recording is available on Jio cinema. The only way to feel their effort is to watch the recording.