"This is after five years of hard work"
Preethi Pal won bronze in the women’s 200m T35 event at the 2024 Paralympics, becoming the first Indian woman to win two Paralympic medals in athletics.
She clocked her personal best of 30.01 seconds in the final to take third place.
Pal won bronze in the 100m T35 class at the 2024 Games, which was India’s first Paralympic medal in a track event.
China’s Xia Zhou and Guo Qianqian won gold and silver, respectively.
Zhou achieved a time of 28.15 seconds while Qianqian registered her personal best of 29.09s.
The same Chinese duo beat Preethi Pal for the top two spots in the 100m event as well.
The T35 class is for runners with coordination impairments such as hypertonia, ataxia and athetosis.
Pal qualified for her first Paralympics by winning a bronze medal in the women’s 200m T35 event at the World Para Athletics Championships in Kobe, Japan, earlier in 2024.
She missed out on a medal at the Asian Para Games in China in 2023.
Pal began training in Delhi and it proved helpful as she now holds two Paralympic medals.
After making the podium at the 200m, Preethi Pal said:
“This is after five years of hard work but there have been people who have been taunting me and saying things that I won were because I was lucky.
“Winning tonight proves to people that it is not by luck alone but because of hard work.
“This is due to my coach Gaje-bhaiya (Gajendra Singh) who I remember after I had vomited in training because the intensity was so high.”
Pal’s bronze medal was India’s sixth medal at the 2024 Paralympics.
The other four medals for India were won in para shooting.
Mona Agarwal won bronze in the 10m air rifle standing SH1 event.
Manish Narwal and Rubina Francis won silver and bronze, respectively.
Avani Lekhara made history on August 29, 2024, by securing a gold medal in the women’s 10m air rifle standing SH1 event at the Paris Paralympics.
This marked her second consecutive victory in this event.
In an outstanding performance, Lekhara surpassed her own Paralympic record with a final score of 249.7, improving on her previous record of 249.6 set at the Tokyo Paralympics.
She said: “It feels very nice to win another gold medal for my country and to defend my title, very nice.
“It feels great to share the podium with her (Mona Agarwal). It’s a great motivation to have her on the podium.”
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