Jhajharia gunning for third gold at Paralympics
MUMBAI: Devendra Jhajharia might have turned 40, but those taunts thrown at him when he was just a child are still fresh for him. Jhajharia was eight when his left hand was amputated after coming in contact with a high-power electric wire while climbing a tree in his village Churu in Rajasthan. Called “weak” by his friends after the mishap, the boy picked up the javelin to fight that label.
“I heard so many things as a kid,” Jhajharia said. “I wouldn’t be allowed to enter the ground. They used to laugh at me, joke about me, saying ‘tera ek haat hi nahi hai, throw kaise karega (You don’t have one hand, how will you throw)?”
Jhajharia’s one hand has given India two gold medals at the Paralympics and will be gunning for a third at the Tokyo Paralympics beginning from August 24.
He is the only Indian with two individual gold medals in either the Olympics or the Paralympics, winning the javelin throw in the F46 category at the 2004 Athens and 2016 Rio Paralympic Games. Both were world record throws--62.15m in Athens and 63.97m in Rio.
That Rio mark stands in danger of being wiped off again in Tokyo, with Jhajharia touching 65.71m during a national selection trial last month.
The lockdown from March last year forced him to remain in his village for around five months, during which all he could do was a bit of weight training using old dumbbells and empty gas cylinders, exercising with car tyres and shadow throwing with a rusted javelin. Jhajharia returned to the Sports Authority of India centre in Gandhinagar in July. In November, Covid-19 struck him. “I’ve never been away from my javelin for as long as I have in the last year or so. Battling Covid was a challenge. I gained weight being inactive, and have shed 7kgs after getting back to training,” he said.
With uncertainty around the Paralympics during that time, Jhajharia, nearing 40 with almost two decades of competing at the top level, could well have given himself a pat on the back and hung up his boots. What stopped him from doing so? “Honestly, I don’t know anything else apart from javelin throw. The one-year delay (of the Paralympics) forced me to think hard about my future. But I would watch my old videos and photos, aur ek josh aata tha usko dekh kar (it would energise me).
“And more than anything else, I love that my sport allows me to see myself winning a medal for my country.”
Jhajharia has had to evolve in his mind and body; from being a rookie fresh out of college in 2004 Athens to a seasoned campaigner in Rio to India’s most successful Paralympian expected to deliver again in Tokyo. What he has lost in agility and speed with age is compensated by better technique and training efficiency.
“There is a lot of planning involved in my training now, which wasn’t the case earlier. I’m also a bit stronger technically,” Jhajharia said.
What has also evolved is the awareness about Paralympics and para sports in the country. “In 2004 before heading to Athens, there was only one person who came to send me off at the airport: my father. Today, the Prime Minister is speaking to me and my family before I go to Tokyo. I feel like the entire country is behind me,” Jhajharia said. What hasn’t changed, however, is a promise. Before the Rio Paralympics, Jhajharia told his daughter that he’d come back with a gold medal. He kept his word then. He wants to keep his word now.
“My daughter told me, ‘papa, you’ve been away for so long’. I said that I’m preparing for something. She replied, ‘Fine, but prepare for a gold medal’.”