Finance
Simran Sharma of India earned a historic bronze medal in the Women’s 200m T12 category at the Paralympic Games on Saturday, clocking a personal best time of 24.75 seconds at the Stade de France Stadium.
Simran, 24, started slowly in the Women’s 200m T12 final but recovered to finish third. This marks India’s first medal in the Women’s 200m T12 category. Simran won India’s first medal in the Paralympic Games with a fantastic run on the penultimate day of competition.
Simran, who is visually challenged, and her guide Abhay Singh earned India’s 28th medal at the Paris Paralympic Games and 16th in para-athletics. Simran finished fourth in the Women’s 100m T12 division, just missing out on the bronze medal. Omara Durand Elias of Cuba completed a grand sprint double, adding the Women’s 200m T12 gold medal to the one she won in the 100m T12 competition a few days ago.
She won the gold medal with a season-best time of 23.62. Omara Durand Elias’ third gold medal in Paris comes after winning the Women’s 400m T12 division. Alejandra Paola Perez Lopez from Venezuela won the silver medal in the Women’s 200m T12 category with a personal best time of 24.19 seconds.
Simran, 24, is a second-time Paralympian who won the gold medal in the World Para-athletics Championship in Kobe, Japan, earlier this year. The sprinter from New Delhi finished 11th in the Women’s 100m T13 event at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics. Simran was born preterm and spent the next ten weeks in an incubator, where she was revealed to be sight impaired.
She trains in Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi, where her spouse Gajendra Singh, an Army Service Corps officer, coaches her. She has come a long way since being taunted for her sight disability, earning gold at the recent World Para Athletics Championships in Kobe and now competing in the Paralympic final. She finished 11th in the 100m – T13 at Tokyo Para Games in 2021 with a timing of 12.69.
Simran’s hard effort and resilience helped her overcome physical and socioeconomic hurdles, and she won the T12 200m gold in style at the World Championships in Japan in June. Simran has won the 100m and 200m national championships as well as the Indian Open since 2022. She also won two silver medals at the Asian Para Games in Hangzhou last year.
Source:IANS
