India opened their medal tally at the 2024 Paris Paralympics with a stunning double podium in women's 10m air rifle standing SH1 as defending champion Avani Lekhara shot her way to a second straight gold and debutant Mona Agarwal won bronze.
It was an impressive performance from both Indians in a tightly contested, rollercoaster final at the Chateauroux range. The 22-year-old Lekhara had to channel all her experience and composure to defend her title under immense expectations - which she did by breaking her own Paralympic record set in Tokyo, with a total of 249.7.
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She is now the first Indian woman to win two Paralympic gold medals and only the second Indian to have multiple Paralympic golds.
Agarwal, 36, recovered brilliantly from a slower start and found herself in the lead towards the business end of the final. But a 10.0 on her last shot meant she finished with bronze on debut, making the many sacrifices and struggles she's had to go through to be a para-athlete as the mother of two small children worthwhile.
South Korea's Lee Yunri won silver, slipping in the final shot after a superb series to pull herself ahead of Agarwal and deny an Indian one-two finish.
Nonetheless, it was a wonderful start to India's shooting campaign in Paris as the national anthem played - for the first time across both the Olympic and Paralympic Games - and the two Indian flags went up as Lekhara and Agarwal, on their wheelchairs, raised the standard for Indian athletes early on these Games.
In the final, both Indians started slow and neither were in the top three after the first 10 shots. Lekhara - who had only one shot below 10 in the entire final, that too in the final series, climbed up with clutch scores in the upper 10s and put herself in medal contention early.
Agarwal took her time but once the eliminations began, she steadily grew in confidence, was joint lead with Lekhara and even led the field at one point, with Lekhara down to bronze. But the lead didn't stay long.
The defending champion responded with a 10.6 and a 10.7 in true champion fashion. Lee though was close on her heels with high scores of her own. The Indian's penultimate shot was a 9.9 as pressure told but when Lee hit an unexpected wayward 6.8 on the final shot, she had sealed her second straight gold medal - finding the mark with a 10.5 under pressure.
Her beaming smile after that final shot almost said she herself couldn't believe she had won it all like this, but the adage does say that fortune favours the brave and all.
Avani Lekhara. Paralympic Champion. Twice over. �� pic.twitter.com/WJHInB1YZK
- ESPN India (@ESPNIndia) August 30, 2024
And Lekhara has been more than brave. As we learnt when she won two medals in Tokyo, a major car accident in 2012 injured her spinal cord and confined her to a wheelchair at only 11. She picked up shooting after reading India's first individual Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra's autobiography, A Shot At History: My Obsessive Journey To Olympic Gold.
At Tokyo as a teenager, she became the first Indian woman to win a Paralympic gold medal and only the second Indian to win multiple medals at the same Games. She also became one of the most recognisable faces in para shooting in India, which carried its own expectations.
But in the three years since Tokyo, her preparation for Paris hasn't been exactly easy. While she has worked on improving her strength and technical skills, a setback came in the form of gallbladder surgery in March this year after the Para Shooting World Cup in Delhi.
It was the same World Cup where Agarwal beat Lekhara to win gold and then followed it up with another at the Para World Cup in Changwon. The internal competition meant Lekhara was not always India's #1 and it showed at the selection trials.
This was a surprising turn of events as Agarwal was relatively new, having taken up the sport only in December 2021. She was struck by polio when she was just nine months old and had a tough childhood living with her grandmother and was always interested in playing sports.
She has been a state-level para-athlete with gold medals in shot put, discus, javelin throw and powerlifting. But she chose shooting after researching a sport which was perfect for her body. "I found shooting suited me perfectly. It would also give me a chance at individual glory," she had said.
Glory she has now, and it has come after immense personal and financial sacrifices to get here. Agarwal is married and has two school-going children, her husband used to play wheelchair basketball before suffering a brain injury. Now, her in-laws take care of the family while she pursues her dream. In June this year, she was struggling for funds for a new wheelchair as she had exhausted her finances while competing and getting a new rifle.
She attributes her ability to perform despite all this to her desire to provide for and be a role model to her children. "The reason I am so mentally stable despite going through all this is because I know both of us are disabled. And, we have to accept that our parents and in-laws will not be with us forever. So, I want to ensure I give my kids a good future... that they don't have to look at anyone else for motivation. I want to be an example of motivation for them," she was quoted as saying by PTI.
Agarwal has achieved this dream by winning a Paralympic medal, and she can win even more. Both Lekhara and Agarwal have a chance to build their legacy further and add to their tallies when they compete in the 50m rifle events.