Promise made to Daughter leads to Olympic Gold

Facts – Devendra Jhajharia – Gold at Paralympic Javelin F46

• 1988 – Lost his arm at the age of 8 to electrocution
• 1997 – Potential identified by his current coach Ripudaman Singh who saw him perform at a school event an encouraged him to take up sport seriously
• 2002 – International Debut in Paralympics at Asian Games
• 2004 – First Gold and World Record at Athens Paralympics
• 2012 – First Paralympian to receive Padma Shri
• 2014 – Named Para-Sportsperson of the Year by FICCI
• First Indian to Win 2 Golds at the Paralympics – both being World Record performances
• Is an Employee of Indian Railways
• Member of Paralympic Committee of Rajasthan

If was the first time that India, after a 116 year old history of Olympics and 48 year history of Paralympics, won 2 Gold Medals at the global competition, when Devendra Jhajharia of Rajasthan threw the Javelin (F46) at 63.97 meters to break his own 12 year old World Record and secure a Gold Medal.  Thereby, fulfilling the promise made to his young daughter, to whom he had said that if she secures first position in his KG class, her father would get a Gold at the Olympics. Jhajharia, who is also the flag bearer for the Indian contingent at the Paralympics at Rio this year, hails from Churu district of Rajasthan and is currently living in Jaipur with his wife an young daughter. Rajasthan government has announced a cash prize of Rs. 75 Lakh in addition to a 200 Sqmt plot in Jaipur  over and above  25Bigha land at Ganganagar, all of which is rightly deserved and probably more should come his way as he has won the Gold medal second time for the country, the first being in the Athens Paralympic in 2004, which was his world record of 62.15 meters, broken finally by himself in 2016. Devendra’s Gold was just the fourth for India in the games history and it is after 32 years that India has won four medals at the games, with two of them being Gold.