Preethi Pal made history on Friday as she became the first Indian para-athlete to win a 100m medal at the Paralympics. Preethi clocked a personal best of 14.21s to win bronze in the women's 100m T35 final of the Paris Paralympics, finishing behind China's Xia Zhou and Qianqian Guo. This was India's first-ever track medal at the Paralympics.
It was a rainy afternoon in Paris and the track at the Stade de France was moist, but that did not affect Preethi as the Paralympics debutant got off to a brilliant start and held her own to claim a creditable bronze.
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Preethi competes in the T35 category, which is for para-athletes who have impairments in coordination. The 23-year-old from Muzzarfarnagar was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at a young age and that affected her movements. Preethi initially trained in Meerut and then moved to New Delhi to train on a synthetic track and it made a world of a difference.
Preethi had fallen agonizingly short of two medals at the 2023 Asian Para Games when she finished fourth in the women's 100m and 200m in the T35 category, but that fuelled her to become better. In 2024, she won two golds at the Indian Open Para Athletics Championships and that set her up well for the World Para Athletics Championships, where she would achieve history.
Preethi won bronze in the women's 100m and 200m in the T35 category, which not only won her quotas for the Paris Paralympics but also her first medals in an international competition.
On Friday, Preethi won the biggest medal of her career and India's first track and field medal of the 2024 Paralympics. This was India's third medal of the day after Avani Lekhara won gold, while Mona Agarwal bagged bronze in the women's 10m air rifle standing SH1.