MUMBAI: Having no knowledge about para-athletics, high jumper Praveen Kumar, who won the silver medal in Tokyo on Friday, depended on Google for basic information about the sport.
"I would watch videos of high jump on Google and try and learn from it. There was nobody to teach me. Later, during a district-level meeting, I was told about coach Dr. Satyapal and met him and he agreed to train me," said Praveen Kumar, who won silver in Men's High Jump T44 at the Paralympic Games on Friday.
Asked about his journey thus far, Kumar talked about how he tried his hand at volleyball but fell in love with high jump. Kumar said that initially he did not believe he would reach thus far and be successful in para-athletics.
"I was a volleyball player but got to know about para-athletics and high jump in 2016. I got my initial knowledge by watching videos on Google. It was during a district-level athletics championship that I was told about coach Dr. Satyapal. I went and met him in 2018, he checked about my classification and then he agreed to train me," said Kumar.
On Friday, Kumar was a bit low on confidence going for 1.97 metres in Tokyo. There was a slight drizzle in the Olympic Stadium and India's best high jumper Mariyappan Thangavelu had missed the gold medal in the T63 final in similar conditions a few days back. Kumar had all the reasons to be nervous and low on confidence.
But once he cleared 1.97 and the bar was raised to 2.01m and he soared over it easily, Praveen says he was confident of his chances as he was in the top three and thus was sure to get at least a bronze medal. He went for his next attempts with a lot of confidence. IANS
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