Paris Paralympics 2024: Kapil's historic bronze, Harvinder and Pooja's near miss and other top moments from Day 8

After the high of winning 17 medals in the last three days, including a record eight medals on Monday, winning just one medal on Day 8 of the Paralympic Games in Paris felt like a downer. Especially since the Paralympians suddenly have Indian sports fans used to the concept of winning medals in a global event.

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While India continue to dream of breaching the double-digit barrier in terms of winning medals at the Olympics, their lone medal on Thursday took their overall haul to 25 — which is six more than their previous best haul set in the Tokyo Games three years ago.

It could very well have been three instead of one, with India narrowly missing out on a medal in a couple of other events. And there were events where Indian competitors produced their season-best performances but unfortunately couldn’t find a place on the podium.

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Here are some of the key moments from Day 8 of the Paralympics involving Indian para-athletes:

Kapil Parmar wins historic bronze

Kapil Parmar made history on Thursday by becoming the first Indian to win a judo medal at the Paralympics.

The 24-year-old judoka from Madhya Pradesh, who had suffered a near-fatal electrocution as a child and had subsequently been in coma for six months, defeated Brazil’s Elielton de Oliveira by a 10-0 margin in the men’s 60kg J1 bronze playoff, achieving an ‘Ippon’ in the process.

Parmar, who had won silver in the same event in the Asian Para-Games last year, had earlier defeated Venezuela’s Marco Dennis Blanco by a similar margin during the quarter-finals but was stopped on his tracks by Iran’s Seyed Meysam Banitaba Khorram Abadi advanced to the final at his expense with an ‘Ippon’.

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The Iranian would later lose to Algeria’s Abdelkader Bouamer in the final to collect silver.

Harvinder misses out on second consecutive medal

Harvinder Singh had made history on Wednesday after defeating Poland’s Lukasz Ciszek in the men’s individual recurve open final to win the country’s maiden gold medal in archery at the Paralympics.

Harvinder would then team up with Pooja Jatyan, who had bowed out in the quarter-finals of the women’s individual event, in the mixed team category, hoping for the country to sign off with a third archery medal. The Indian pair started off with a nervy 5-4 win over Australia, followed by a 6-0 thrashing of Poland in the quarter-finals.

Pooja and Harvinder would then suffer a 2-6 loss against Italy’s Elisabetta Mijno and Stefano Travisani to miss out on a gold or a silver, but remain in contention for a bronze.

As for the bronze playoff against Slovenia’s Ziva Lavrinc and Dejan Fabcic, Pooja and Harvinder were on the verge of a podium finish at 4-2 when their opponents fought back in Set 4 to take the contest into a shoot-off.

Harvinder and Pooja shot 8 and 9 respectively in the shoot-off, which wasn’t enough in the end as the Slovenians clinched the medal with 9 and 10.

Simran Sharma also misses out on a podium finish

Also missing out on a medal by a whisker was para-sprinter Simran Sharma, who finished fourth in the women’s 100-metre T12 race — a category involving athletes with visual impairment who run alongside a guide.

Simran, who had Abhay Singh as her guide, had topped her Round 1 heat with a season-best timing of 12.17 seconds and would later finish second in her semi-final heat with a timing of 12.33 to advance to the final.

Simran, who had won silver in the Asian Para-Games in Hangzhou last year, was far from her best in the final as she finished fourth in the final with a timing of 12.31 seconds, 0.05 seconds slower than bronze medallist Katrin Mueller-Rottgardt of Germany.

Cuba’s Elias Omara Durand won gold with a timing of 11.81 seconds and was followed by Ukraine’s Oksana Boturchuk, who crossed the finish line in 12.17 seconds. All three medallists registered their season-best timings.

Simran, however, can still walk away with a medal around her neck as she will be competing in the 200m race as well, an event in which she had won gold in the World Championships earlier this year.

Season-best throw not enough for Arvind

The final event of Day 8 involving an Indian athlete was the men’s shot put F35 final featuring Arvind Malik. Arvind produced his season-best throw measuring 13.01 metres after starting with an 11.79m throw and then breaching the 12-metre mark in his next attempt.

The effort, however, was nowhere close to getting him a place on the podium as Iran’s Seyed Aliasghar Javanmardi won the event with a best throw of 15.84 metres.

Uzbekistan’s Khusniddin Norbekov won the event comfortably with a throw of 16.82 metres, a new Paralympic record, while Argentina’s Hernan Emanuel Urra registered a South American record with his silver-winning throw of 16.11 metres.