India is all set to host the biggest World Para Athletics Championships! The event will set a mark of more than 100 nations participating at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium opening on 27th September.
However, a glaring fact is nuancely summed up by javelin icon Navdeep Singh: “Before Paris, no one. After Paris, champion.”
India has performed remarkably well on the Paris Paralympics stage, returning home only after sealing 29 medals, including 17 in athletics. Now, it’s time for India to show the world the strength of their home ground.
Simran Sharma, while talking to the Times of India, stated, “There is definitely pressure on the home ground. Where there is support, there are also expectations. I won gold at the last World Championship, so somewhere I have to defend that medal.”
If Simran shoulders the weight of expectation, Navdeep embodies the calm of detachment.
“Preparations are going well. Earlier, I had some disturbance with the runway, but now it’s fine. I still have time to make corrections and will keep working to perform even better,” he further stated.
While talking further, he noted how he deals with negative comments: “Winning gold is fine, but the negative comments that people pass, I don’t keep them in my mind or my heart. I listen to some music; it relaxes me. I never let negative thoughts overpower me.”
Needless to say, the positive approach of life being led in the present while not contemplating the past and bitterness is the secret sauce of making a champion.
And completing the picture is Preethi Pal, India’s first Paralympic track medallist, who has been honoured as the Indian flagbearer for the Championships. She stated, “Preparations are going well. But as it is with exams, only the result will tell what will happen on the day,” she says with a broad smile.
However, for Preethi it’s more than a competition; one of the reasons might be the new addition of the Mondo track, recently laid at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, contemplating the standards of the world’s greatest sporting arenas.
Preethi further added, “This is our first Mondo track at the JLN Stadium, and it feels really good. Earlier, we trained on synthetic surfaces, and suddenly moving to Mondo feels different. It feels like guests are coming home, and we will be competing with them right here.”
The Mondo track offers para-athletes a chance to prove their mettle on a world-class, Olympic-standard surface.
Yet, even at her peak, Preethi cannot shake off the heartbreak of the last Asian Games, where she missed a medal by just milliseconds.
“I missed a medal in my very first international tournament by just milliseconds.”
“It felt terrible. But people told me, ‘The World Championships and Paralympics are still ahead.’ I laughed at first, thinking if I couldn’t win at the Asian Games, how would I ever win at a World Championship? But they said, ‘Trust yourself.’ When you trust yourself, your body responds accordingly. That’s why I believe we must always think positive,” the Arjun Awardee reveals.
“Some say we are just running for timepass, that our medals come easy. They should come see us train: we throw up, we fall sick, and we push ourselves to the limit. They only see the medal and the prize money, never the sweat and struggle behind it.”
For Preethi, as for her teammates, actions speak louder than words — loud enough to silence the critics.
“After Paris, my confidence soared. The hesitation is gone. The more tournaments we play, the better we perform,” she says.
