Tokyo show: India’s path-breaking surge enters double digits
TOKYO: The Indian juggernaut at the Paralympics showed no signs of slowing down as three more medals ensured that the country hit the double digit mark for the first time ever. Mariyappan Thangavelu won a silver medal in high jump.
NEW DELHI: A quirk of fate made Adhana Singhraj a shooter. Singhraj, who won bronze in the men’s 10m air pistol event in the Paralympics on Tuesday, had taken his children and nephews for admission in a sports complex in Faridabad. His children enrolled in swimming and the nephews joined shooting. It meant Singhraj, then 35, would spend three to four hours at the complex.
“My kids asked me, ‘why don’t you learn how to swim?”. I thought it was a good idea instead of wasting my time. But even to take off my clothes it took me three days because it used to be in my mind, what would people think,” said Singhraj, who had polio when he was one but has learnt to walk unaided. The swimming coach told Singhraj to come in the evening when there are fewer people. “I went one evening and finally took a dip and I was not able to pick myself up even in two feet water. I thought swimming could be dangerous for me,” he said.
It was then that he decided to try the sport of his nephews’ choice. “They asked me… I went in the range and saw the coach instructing the kids. It looked easy to me and I laughed. The coach told me why I was laughing, ‘you try if you think it’s so easy. I picked up the pistol and out of five shots I hit four 10s. They were very impressed and asked him to try para shooting.”
That’s how it began for Singhraj and soon after he got to know about Paralympics.
He shoots from a sitting position learning first from coach Om Prakash before honing skills under JP Nautiyal and national coach Subhash Rana. Singhraj, who is also a social activist and has worked in education sector and for rights of the differentlyabled, said it was an opportunity for him to do something for the country. That dream was fulfilled on Tuesday.
He battled hard in the qualification and made the eightshooter final in sixth position with a score of 569. “The qualification did not go well but I fought through and I was aware of what was going wrong, I discussed with the coaches, did some meditation and left it behind. I just followed the process in the final,” Singhraj said in a conversation with Eurosport.
In the final, fighting three Chinese for a medal, Singhraj was fourth at one point. “I could not have made a bad shot from there. My coaches have taught me: one shot, perfect shot. I kissed my gun and aimed for a perfect shot, and it went well,” he said.
Singhraj kept his calm in the last couple of shots and totalled 216.8 in the final, edging Xialong Lou to fourth. China’s Yang Chao (237.9) and Huang Xing (237.5) won gold and silver respectively in P1 men’s air pistol final of the SH1 category. In this category, an athlete has impairment in an arm and/or the legs. P1 is a classification for the men’s 10 air pistol competition. Shooters can compete in seated or standing position.
The other Indian in fray, young Manish Narwal, a world championship medallist and strong podium contender, had topped the qualification (575 points) but couldn’t recover from a poor first series in the final and finished seventh.
“Manish was a medal contender. He is so good he is always on top in international competitions. After he was eliminated, I felt sad. The pressure was on me. But immediately I got my focus back. It was not the time to get disappointed but to fight it out,” said Singhraj.
In 2018, Singhraj won bronze from the 2018 Para Asian Games and silver and team gold at Chateauroux World Cup in France. He won bronze in the P4 team event at Sydney World Championships in 2019, but his training was hampered in 2020 because ranges were closed during the first lockdown. So, Singhraj built his own range at home.
“I was not getting sleep thinking about how I will start my training for the Tokyo Paralympics. That’s when I got the idea from my coach and overnight I made a plan and designed a layout and told my family.