Triple treat by para stars

It turned it to be a super Sunday for Team India at the Paralympic Games as high jumper Nishad Kumar and discus thrower Vinod Kumar clinched a silver and a bronze respectively with Asian records adding to table tennis champ Bhavinaben Patelrsquos silver medal effort earlier in the dayNishad 21 a farmerrsquos son from Himachal Pradesh cleared 206m to win the silver in the T47 category before Vinod 41 a Border Security Force soldier whose father fought in the 1971 IndoPakistan war produced a best throw of 1991m to clinch a bronze in F52 event The two athletics medals came after Patel gave India its first medal in the Games by grabbing a silver in the womenrsquos singles table tennis Class 4 eventIndiarsquos Nishad Kumar clears 206m during the high jump final at the Tokyo Paralympics yesterday to win the silver medalRecord medal haul possibleThe 24member Indian athletics team is hoping for a rich haul of medalsmdashat least 10mdash and this double success gave the country enough reason to smile on National Sports DayNishad whose right hand got cut by a grasscutting machine at his familyrsquos farm when he was just eight cleared the same height of 206m with American Dallas Wise who was also awarded a silver Another American Roderick Townsend won the gold with a world record jump of 215m The second Indian in the fray Ram Pal finished fifth with a best jump of 194m T47 class is meant for athletes with a unilateral upper limb impairment resulting in some loss of function at the shoulderelbow and wristIndiarsquos Vinod Kumar during the discus throw final yesterdayNishad had also contracted COVID19 earlier this year while training at the SAI Centre in Bengaluru Nishad had won a gold medal in the menrsquos high jump T4647 event at the Fazza World Para Athletics Grand Prix in Dubai earlier this year He began competing in para athletics in 2009Meanwhile Vinod also set an Asian record while winning the bronze medal Piotr Kosewicz 2002m of Poland and Velimir Sandor 1998m of Croatia won the silver and bronze respectively Vinod injured his legs while training after joining the BSF falling off a cliff in Leh leaving him bedridden for close to a decade during which he also lost his parents The F52 classification is for athletes with impaired muscle power restricted range of movement limb deficiency or leg length difference with athletes competing in seated position It also applies to cervical cord injury spinal cord injury amputation and functional disorderHistoric silver in TTEarlier in the day Patel won a silver in womenrsquos singles table tennis Class 4 event becoming the first paddler and only the second Indian woman to win a medal at the Games She went down 03 711 511 611 to World No 1 Ying Zhou of China in the gold medal match The Table Tennis Federation of India announced a R31 lakh cash reward for Patel who is now keen to meet her childhood idol Sachin Tendulkar ldquoBhavina wants to meet Tendulkar and show him her medal Hersquos her idol We are trying to contact him and fix a meeting once we return to Indiardquo her husband Nikul Patel saidArchers disappointMeanwhile it wasnrsquot great going for Indiarsquos archers as their challenge ended in the compound mixed pair open section after the duo of Rakesh Kumar and Jyoti Baliyan made a quarterfinal exit The sixthseeds suffered a poor start misfiring into the sixring in the first end which proved to be decisive as they lost to their Turkish opponents Oznur Cure and Bulent Korkmaz151153 Indiarsquos challenge in the womenrsquos compound open section also ended after Jyoti lost to KerrieLouise Leonard of Ireland 141137 in the first roundAlso Read Clayton Murzello Braveheart Dharods last goodbyeThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliabilitsy and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever