RIO DE JANERIO:
A Deepa did win a medal for India at Rio. It may not have come in gymnastics but it was still a Produnova in its own right. Deepa Malik , a 45-year-old wheelchair-bound adrenaline junkie, from Gurgaon made history when she became the first Indian woman to win a medal at the Paralympics. Her throw of 4.61m won her a silver in the shot put F-53 event.
Deepa's silver extended India's tally at the Rio Paralympics to three medals. Bahrain's Fatema Nedham won the gold medal with a best throw of 4.76m, while Dimitra Korokida of Greece bagged bronze with a throw of 4.28m."I want to use this medal to support women with disabilities in India. This journey has been wonderful for me and my entire family. I am proud to be the oldest athlete in the team and win a medal," Deepa was quoted by news agency IANS as saying immediately after she won the medal.
"I don't know whether she was confident of winning a medal but she gave the best performance of her life," daughter Devika told TOI after the news came in, adding, "I haven't spoken to her after the event, but we had seen her work hard for the Games and we are happy that that hard work resulted in a medal."
The silver medal will be the icing on the cake for Deepa, also the first Indian woman to participate at the Paralympics, but it comes on the back of a dazzling array of swimming and javelin efforts for the paraplegic, who has been paralysed from the waist down after a spinal tumour in 1999, followed by three surgeries and 183 stitches, made walking impossible.
A former Rajasthan state women's cricketer, Deepa's first love remains biking. Deepa Malik once claimed she had gotten married at 20 because her husband supported her love for bikes. Despite her current condition, she became the first paraplegic woman in the world to ride a quad bike across nine high-altitude passesin nine days on Ladakh's motorable roads. In 2013, she participated in a Chennai-Delhi (3,278km) panIndia drive by paraplegic women.
