Athletics
Event: Men’s 1500m T11 Round 1- Heat 1
Athlete: Ankur Dhama (Guide:Vipin Kumar)
Time: 8:53pm IST
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Naresh Sharma bowed out amidst collective disappointment as his campaign in the 10m Air Rifle Event came to an end. On the other hand, Pooja Khanna, a girl from Rohtak and India’s first archer at the Paralympics, continued her amazing and historical journey.
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She will now play in the Round of 32 after finishing 29th in the Ranking Round. Her final score was 513 after she notched up a total of 39 with her final six arrows. She will be facing Milena Olszewska of Poland, who scored a massive 619, in the Round of 32.
On September 11, only one Indian will feature in the day’s events but it promises to be a sight to behold. The greatest thing the Paralympics do for people watching them is provide inspiration. The Games are a hub of brave people who have battled all odds to be where they currently are. Our Indian for the day falls under this category.
Ankur Dhama, a 21-year old History student at St Stephen’s, has consistently been doing the country proud since he won three medals at the Asian Para-Games held at Incheon in 2014. This middle-long distance runner competes in the T11 category- a category for the completely visually challenged.
As a result, he will need to run with a guide and India’s Vipin Kumar will be silently supporting this determined athlete.
His excellence stands out without question as out of the three medals at Incheon, one of them was a silver. He finished second in the 800m race by just 13 microseconds behind a Japanese Gold medal winner.
Also read: Is Arjuna Award a 'bought award'? The case of Rio Paralympian Ankur Dhama suggests so
Hailing from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh, Dhama suddenly lost his vision at the age of six. The complete process was fast and inexplicable as it happened within the span of a week. Initially, this phenomenon was thought to be the result of a prior injury as he was subsequently operated upon.
However, none of them proved useful and Dhama ended up having to live with blindness. This does not daunt his spirit. Faced with such hardship, he is a cheerful person with a great sense of sportsmanship. And although he has no use for them, he wears a pair of black glasses as a fashion statement.
He ran his first international level race while still in school and won two gold medals at World Youth and Student Championships in 2009. Without a doubt, Dhama is a prodigious talent. He is currently ranked 10th in the world according to the official IPC rankings. Here’s hoping for a brilliant performance by the young lad.
