Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with India's Paralympic athletes at his residence after a successful campaign, which saw the Indian contingent grab hold of as many as 29 medals, the highest tally in the country's history and 10 more than the previous best of 19 in Tokyo. India won as many as seven Gold, nine Silver and 13 Bronze medals in their historic campaign in Paris. The contingent returned on Tuesday, September 10 and first met PM Modi and then had a felicitation ceremony in New Delhi.
PM Modi asked the athletes to share their experience of Paris Paralympics and many including Nishad Kumar, Sumit Antil, Kapil Parmar, Yogesh Kathunia and Simran Sharma among others shared their experiences.
Javelin throw athlete, Antil, who defended his Gold medal with a 70.11m throw dedicated his achievement to the Prime Minister. "This is my back-to-back second Gold medal. I still remember when I won the Gold in Tokyo, you took a promise from me that 'I want two Gold medals from you'. So, the second one is for you because before the Paralympics I was pretty nervous reading the article 'Most favourite to defend Gold'," Antil said.
"My name was also on that list. But when I spoke to you on August 20, I remembered that Tokyo moment that I had to do it again. My whole team, the physio and the coach are thankful to you as we feel if I win a medal, we'll get to meet you and talk to you. So, thank you," he added.
Everyone from Avani Lekhara, Sheetal Devi, Preethi Pal, Rakesh Kumar, Harvinder Singh and Navdeep to the coaches, the physios and mental conditioning coaches, everyone was present and the stories, the behind-the-scenes moments, also let PM Modi mingle with all of them easily as laughter, emotions and tales of courage took centre stage.
PM Modi introduced Navdeep by saying that his celebration reels have become really popular apart from Sheetal's. "Sir my event was on the last day. And I reached Paris around 21st [August]. So the moment, the medals started coming in, I started worrying a bit that everyone is winning, what will happen with me?," Navdeep said. "But senior athletes like Sumit, Sandeep, Ajeet and Devendra sir, I just spoke to them one by one and gained experience on how they do it and what I should do to keep calm. So by the time my event arrived, I went in with free mind."
