India’s world champion Deepthi Jeevanji came up short of her best timing as she won a bronze medal in the women’s 400m T20 category final race at the Paralympics on Tuesday. Deepthi, who turns 21 later this month, clocked 55.82 seconds to finish behind Yuliia Shuliar (55.16 seconds) of Ukraine and world record holder Aysel Onder (55.23) of Turkey. Shuliar had won a silver in Tokyo Paralympics three years ago.
Deepthi had come into Paris Paralympics as a strong contender for the gold after a top-place finish at the World Para-Athletics Championships in May in Japan where she had clocked the-then world record of 55.07 seconds.
Turkish runner Onder smashed Deepthi’s world record during the heats on Monday with a time of 54.96 seconds. Onder had finished second behind Deepthi in the 2024 World Para-Athletics Championships in May.
T20 category is meant for athletes with intellectual impairment.
Nonetheless, Deepthi, born to daily-wage labourer parents in Kalleda village in the Warangal district of Telangana, became the second Indian to win a medal in a track event at the Paralympics after Preethi Pal.
On Sunday, Preethi had created history as she became the first Indian woman track and field athlete to win two medals at the Paralympics. The 23-year-old Preethi bagged a bronze in the 200m T35 category with a personal best time of 30.01 seconds. She had also won a bronze in the 100m T35 category on Friday.
Deepthi’s bronze, won in her debut Paralympics, was India’s sixth medal from para-athletics.
For a long time, Deepthi’s parents were taunted by fellow villagers for having a “mentally impaired” child. They were at the receiving end of taunts from the villagers, who would often say that she would never get married since she was “mentally impaired”.
At the age of 15, Deepthi was first spotted by N Ramesh, an Athletics Federation of India coach under the payrolls of the Sports Authority of India.
Deepthi had won the 400m T20 gold in the Hangzhou Asian Games last year with the then Asian record of 56.69 seconds.
Interestingly, Deepthi has competed along with able-bodied athletes in the junior as well as senior championships. She has won several medals at the junior level while competing alongside able-bodied athletes.
She last competed in an able-bodied senior event at the 2022 National Inter-State Championships in Chennai where she ran the 100m and 200m. Before that, she competed with able-bodied athletes during the 2021 National Senior Inter-State Championships in Patiala and won the 200m bronze.
She won the 200m bronze in the 2019 Asian U18 Championships (able-bodied) with a time of 24.78 seconds.
Earlier in the day, Bhagyashri Jadhav finished fifth in the women’s shot put (F34).
Jadhav, making her second appearance at the Paralympics, produced a throw of 7.28m but it was not enough for a podium finish.
China’s Lijuan Zou won the gold with a season best of 9.14m while Poland’s Lucyna Kornobys secured the silver with an effort of 8.33m.
The 39-year-old from Nanded district in Maharashtra was one of the flag-bearers of the Indian contingent at the opening ceremony.
Athletes in the F34 class have to deal with co-ordination impairments including hypertonia (stiff muscles), ataxia (poor muscle control) and athetosis (slow, writhing movement of the limbs or trunk).
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