All the Olympians who represented India in the 2020 Summer Olympics made every Indian’s chest swell with pride and undoubtedly the gold medal-winning moment in Javeline throw by our very own Neeraj Chopra is something that cannot be put into words. Javeline thrower Chopra won the individual gold at the Tokyo Olympics, which is recorded as the first gold medal of India in athletics and only the second after shooter Abinav Bindra in the year 2008. However, do you know that even before Chopra, India has already won two gold medals in the Olympics and that too by none other than but by Devendra Jhajharia.
Who is Devendra Jhajharia ?
The national pride of India, Jhajharia is a Paralympic Javeline Thrower who have represented India two times at the Paralympics. The first time was in the 2004 summer Paralympics that took place in Athens and where he won first gold, meanwhile, the second time was in the 2016 Summer Paralympics that was hosted in Rio de Janeiro and where once again Jhajharia made us proud by winning the second-ever gold medal. What’s more, he beat his own previous record and at present, he is being supported by an independent non-profit venture, Go Sports Foundation (GSF) via the Para champions programme.
Only Indian to Have Ever Won Two Gold Medals at Paralympic
Recently, the Paralympic games took over their Twitter account and wrote that after seeing Neeraj Chopra seal an epic Olympic gold for team India, we were reminded of this word record Paralympic moment when Devendra Jhajharia sent it flying in Rio. Jhajharia won two gold medals at the Athen Paralympic as well as at the Rio de Janerio Olympics and made a world record of 62.15m in the javelin throw. However, what makes this record more astonishing and unusual is that he did all this with one arm.
Despite all the challenges and hardships faced by the Paralympian, his never giving up attitude and his positive outlook about life is something that is truly commendable. Jhajharia has been often seen saying that when he looks around, he sees so many people who did not have both arms or both legs and it is when he thought he was lucky to have his right hand. Bron on 10th June 1981, in a small district of Rajasthan named Churu, Jhajharia was raised in a farmer family.
At the young age of 8 years, when the Paralympian was trying to climb on a tree, he accidentally touched a live electric cable, because of which his left arm got completely damaged, and then, doctors were compelled to remove his left hand. In the year 1997, he was found by Dronacharya award recipient coach R.D. Singh, when he was competing in the sports day at school. For his outstanding performance in the Olympics, the government of India honoured the Paralympian, Devendra Jhajharia with Arjuna Award in 2004.
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