Praveen’s record-breaking jump helps India hit a golden six in Paralympics
Paris: High jumper Praveen Kumar upgraded his Tokyo silver to a gold with a record-smashing performance, helping India nose ahead of the likes of Canada and Korea in the overall standings as the country’s para-athletes continued to defy projections in their best Paralympic performance here.
The 21-year-old from Noida, who was born with a short leg, jumped to a new Asian record of 2.08m in the T64 category, which also featured athletes of T44 classification.
He clinched the top honours ahead of USA’s Derek Loccident (2.06m) and Uzbekistan’s Temurbek Giyazov (2.03m).
T64 is for athletes with movement moderately affected in one lower leg or the absence of one or both legs below the knee, while T44, to which Praveen belongs, is for athletes with movement affected at a low or moderate degree in one lower leg.
The country’s medal haul swelled to 26, including six gold, nine silver and 11 bronze medals. The performance surpasses all pre-Games projections and with one more day of competitions left, it is expected to get better.
Opting to start from 1.89m, Kumar aced seven jumps in his first attempt to put himself in pole position. The bar was then raised to 2.10m, with Kumar and Loccident fighting for the top spot but both failed to clear the mark. Praveen, who was also the 2023 world championship bronze-medallist, recorded not just an Asian record but his personal best performance too. His impairment, which is congenital, affects the bones that connect his hip to his left leg.
In his formative years, Kumar has confessed to grappling with feelings of inadequacy.
He started playing sports to deal with his insecurities and found a passion for volleyball. But his life changed when he took part in a high jump event at an able-bodied athletics competition.
He is the third high jumper after Sharad Kumar and Mariyappan Thangavelu to secure a medal in Paris.
Sharad and Thangavelu won silver and bronze in the men’s high jump T63 event on September 3.
