Ariyappan, Sharad win ilver, bronze in high jump
Defending champion iyappan Thangavelu and ad Kumar won a silver and ze respectively in the men’s jump T42 event as India’s al tally at the Paralympics hed an unprecedented 10 on day. ariyappan cleared 1.86m e the American gold winner Grewe succeeded in soaring e 1.88m in his third attempt. umar took the bronze with fort of 1.83. he third Indian in the fray 2016 Rio Paralympics ze winner, Varun Singh i ended seventh out of nine petitors as he failed to clear m. The T42 classification is thletes with a leg deficiency, ength difference, impaired cle power or impaired pasrange of movement in the The athletes compete in a ding position. rlier in the day, shooter hraj Adhana fetched a ze in the men’s 10mair pish1 event. COVID-19 came in way of him going to the e before the Tokyo Paralymso, Indian shooter Singhraj na simply built the range at e after drawing its layout in one night. the Asaka Shooting Range on Tuesday, the monumenfort paid off as the 39-yearonly four years after taking e sport, won the Paralymbronze medal in the P1 ’s 10m air pistol SH1 event. owever, for someone who tion to resume training had reached a point where he was not able to even get a good night’s sleep. “As I was not able to train, I started thinking that my dream of winning a medal is over. That’s when my coaches suggested why not try building a range at home,” Adana said in a media interaction organised by broadcaster Eurosport and the Paralympic Committee of India. “I was getting desperate and was not able to sleep at all because of the absence of training. So I approached my family with the idea and they were taken aback at first as it involved lakhs of rupees. “My mother only asked me to ensure that we are able to feed ourselves later on if something went wrong. But thanks to my family and coaches’ support, the green signal and help from the Paralympic Committee of India and NRAI, we succeeded in my mission and the range was just Tokyo but also Paris Games.” “That’s why I am here today.” Adana, who has served as the chairman of the Sainik Public School in Faridabad, shot a total of 216.8 to finish the event in the third place after qualifying for the eight-man final as the sixth best shooter.
Hovering around the top three, Adana dropped out of contention with his poor 19th shot but managed to get back in the reckoning with his 20th attempt as China’s Xiaolong Lou got 8.6.
Adana’s first brush with the sport happened when he accompanied his nephew to a shooting range. “My nephew Gaurav Adana is a shooter. I was smiling as they trained and the coach asked me about the reason. That day I tried my hand at shooting and was on target four out of five times including hitting the inner 10,” he recalled proudly.
Adana was coming into the