History was made on Friday night in Rio when Mariyappan Thangavelu clinched India’s first-ever gold in high jump at the Paralympics.
Twenty two year old Indian Paralympic high jump gold medal winner Mariyappan Thangavelu comes from a very humble background in Tamil Nadu’s Salem district. His single mother Saroja is a vegetable seller who earns just around hundred rupees a day.
The Olympian suffered disability on a leg when he was just five after he was run over by a government bus near his school. But that did not stop him from leaping high. After a seventeen year legal battle, the family received a compensation of Rs. 2 lakh.
With a jump of 1.89 metres, Thangavelu also became only the third-ever indian to bag a gold at the Paralympics. America’s Sam Grewe bagged the silver and Indian Varun Singh Bhati won the bronze.
T-42 is a disability sport classification for differently-abled athletes with single ‘above the knee’ amputations or a disability that is comparable. Watch the video here.