Rio de Janeiro: India’s Mariyappan Thangavelu created history on Saturday morning by winning a gold medal in the men’s high jump T-42 event at the Rio Paralympics.
His compatriot Varun Singh Bhati clinched the bronze medal the same event. While Thangavelu made a leap of 1.89 metres, Bhati jumped his personal best of 1.86 metres to finish third.
India’s other medal prospect Sharad Kumar finished at number six. USA’s Sam Grewe bagged the silver medal.
Kumar led the pack at one stage after clearing hurdles of 1.55m and 1.60m but he could only register a best of 1.77m which wasn’t enough to bring him into medal contention, thus finishing sixth. In the 10th attempt, Mariyappan cleared the 1.77m mark successfully, along with three others – Poland’s Lukasz Mamczarz, China’s Zhiqiang Zhing and Kumar.
Eventually, in a nail biting finale, Mariyappan grabbed the top honours in Brazil by finishing with a jump of 1.89m as opposed to Sam Grewe’s and Varun Bhati’s reach of 1.86m.
