What comes to your mind when you hear about Rajasthan? Is it fairytale-like destination weddings in Udaipur or touring the pink city, Jaipur or spices and camels along with the very famous Thar desert and Aravalli hills? This is all fine but how about sports gems belonging to Rajasthan who are making India extremely proud?

We are talking about three fabulous paralympic champions of India who come from different corners of Rajasthan, the land of kings. In Paralympic Tokyo 2020, Indian contingents earned 19 medals which are more than the summer Olympics 2020. Among those 19 champions, we present AVANI LEKHARA, DEVENDRA JHAJARIA and SUNDAR SINGH GURJAR.

Did you know that a teenager from Jaipur, Rajasthan won her historic paralympic gold medal? It’s none other than Avani Lekhara. Paralympic games are one of the major international tournaments where athletes with physical disabilities participate. This game runs parallel to the Olympics games as the word ‘para’ also defines beside or alongside in Greek prepositions. In 2012 she met with an accident due to which she suffered a spinal cord injury and was paralysed from the waist down.

Through the guidance of her coach, Chandra Shekhar in Jagatpura, Jaipur, she managed to earn a silver medal in 10m Air Rifle Shooting at the AI Ain World Cup 2017. After this achievement, she decided to compete in the 50m 3p event. To qualify, in this event the shooters compete in three series for two hours and 45 minutes and 3p means the three different positions i.e kneeling, prone and standing. Neither her age nor her injury stopped her from setting paralympic records. She created a new Paralympic record score of 249.6 in the 10m standing SH1 category final and along with this she bagged a bronze medal in the 50m 3P SH1 category in Tokyo 2020. After Joginder Singh Sodhi won three medals in the 1984 games, Avani Lekhara becomes the second Indian to win two medals in the Paralympic games.

After Tokyo 2020, everyone knew about Neeraj Chopra but is anyone aware of Sundar Singh Gurjar who trained with him in 2015 under the Junior National camp and won a bronze medal in the Paralympics games 2020? The F46 Javelin thrower had a mishap in 2015 wherein a tin shade fell upon him this led to the amputation of his left hand while he was at his friend’s place.

This was not the only time when life threw lemons at him. There was a delay of 52 seconds in his response to the call from the registration for the 2016 Rio Olympics and ended up being disqualified from the game in that particular year. Despite these hardships, Sundar was able to make lemonade whenever life threw lemons at him.   

How would you visualize an eight-year-old boy spending his childhood days in Rajgarh village, Churu District in Rajasthan? Doing usual things like climbing up a tree was quite normal, right? But who knew this normal activity would lead to a mishap? Devendra Jhajaria lost his left arm when he was 8 and accidentally touched an electrical wire of 11000 volts while climbing up a tree. After this mishap, he not only pursued his dreams but also inspired others to do so. He is one of the most successful and inspiring para-athletes in India.

Two times Paralympics gold medal winner, 30 years of experience in Javelin Throw and known for setting unbelievable records. Now, he is contributing towards building India’s sports empire via being a coach at the Sports Authority of India (SAI).

Now, these three gems from Rajasthan also work together in the forest department of their state just like they participated in the paralympic games for the nation.

Rajasthan never misses chances to pull in various tourists across the globe and so did in making India proud by winning paralympic medals. Let’s see what these three gems along with other amazing Indian para-athletes have got in store for the 2024 Paris Olympics! 

Tu khud ki khoj mein nikal, tu kis liye hataash hai, tere vajood ki samay ko bhi talash hai.