Mariyappan, Sharad brave rain, pain to win medals
MUMBAI: Just as the men’s high jump T63 final of the 2020 Paralympics kicked off under lights at the Tokyo Olympic Stadium, it began to drizzle. As the bar kept rising, so did the downpour.
Sharad Kumar, who injured his meniscus the day before the event, wasn’t sure if he would be fit enough to jump in the first place. Mariyappan Thangavelu, the defending champion with a leap of 1.89m at the 2016 Rio Paralympics, wasn’t sure if his target of 1.90m was quite as achievable anymore.
“Every jump felt like war,” Kumar said.
Against this far-from-ideal conditions that tested their mental resolve as well as physical skills, the Indians delivered two medals, a silver and bronze, from one eventful final on Tuesday. The two medals also pushed India’s overall tally into double figures at the Paralympics for the first time ever. After a record haul of five medals on Monday that swelled the tally to seven, Indians backed it up with three more on Tuesday with shooter Singhraj Adana opening the honours with a bronze in men’s 10m air pistol SH1 (lower body impairment) before Mariyappan and Kumar took over.
Kumar won bronze with a jump of 1.83m in his first attempt before failing to clear 1.86m. Mariyappan did clear 1.86m, in his third and final attempt. The medal was in, but the fight for gold was still on.
Joining him in that battle was American Sam Grewe, who had finished behind Mariyappan in 2016 with a silver-winning 1.86m jump. After also having cleared 1.86m in his third attempt on Tuesday, both went for 1.88m. Mariyappan had already been there in Rio, Grewe hadn’t. In Tokyo, the tables turned. Mariyappan touched the bar in all his three tries, Grewe leapt over it with his final shot.
Mariyappan couldn’t defend his title, but he backed up his 2016 gold with a silver medal in his second Paralympics. The 26-year-old has not returned from the Paralympics without a medal to show in his young and already illustrious career, delivering on the biggest stage in sun-kissed Rio as well as raindrenched Tokyo.
“I was confident of clearing 1.90m if the conditions were better. I had started well before the rain picked up,” Mariyappan said in a press conference, adding that his socks started getting wet which hampered his take-off after the impressive start where he cleared four attempts including 1.83m without needing a second invitation.
Drama has followed Mariyappan in Tokyo. He was chosen as India’s flag-bearer for the opening ceremony before being replaced at the last minute after being identified as a close contact of a Covid positive person on his flight. He was made to isolate and train separately. “It was an upsetting moment for me. But I somehow wanted to win a medal for India,” he said.
Mariyappan was five when, while on his way to school, he was run over by a vehicle in his village in Salem, Tamil Nadu. It crushed his right leg. Despite his mother being the sole earner of the family after his father had abandoned them, Mariyappan completed his schooling. It was there that his PE teacher insisted he try high jump. With national coach Satyanarayana spotting him in 2013 and taking him under his wings at SAI Bengaluru from 2015, the Rajinikanth fan’s stellar run on the international stage took off: gold in 2016 Paralympics, bronze in 2018 Asian Para Games, bronze in 2019 World Championships.
At the same World Championships in Dubai, Kumar had won silver. It came a year after the gold at the 2018 Asiad, but a spot at the podium had eluded him in Rio, where he was sixth. Shifting his training base to Ukraine thereafter, Kumar reset his goal: a medal in Tokyo.
Things seemed well on track until Monday, when Kumar had a tear in his meniscus after landing on his knee during a training session. “I was in a lot of pain,” Kumar said over the phone. “I had to manage the pain, and the rain. It was one crazy ride.”
Kumar’s entry into high jump was thanks to his brother. The boy from Motipur in Bihar was infected with polio at the age of two that paralysed his left leg, but it didn’t stop his father from enrolling him in the same boarding school as his brother in Darjeeling. Kumar wanted to emulate his brother by taking up high jump, a sport in which he excelled. In 7th standard, during a lunch break, when no one was looking, Kumar ran and sailed over the bar. “I was like, ‘wow, I can do this’. A week later in our intra-school competition, I broke the house record and won a medal,” he recalled.
Years later, that medal was a Paralympic bronze.