After claiming the bronze medal in the women’s 100m T35 event at the Paris 2024 Paralympics Games, the 23-year-old Preethi Pal created another history for the nation by winning another bronze medal in the women’s 200m T35 event.
On Sunday (1 September), the Indian para-athlete Preethi Pal participated in the women’s 200m T35 event. Just like the women's 100m T35 event, Chinese athletes dominated in the women’s 200 T35 event.
The world record holder and the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics champion Chinese Xia Zhou won the gold medal in the women’s 200 T35 event at the Paris 2024 Paralympics Games. She produced her season-best performance by completing the race in 28.15 seconds.
Another Chinese Guo Qianqian won the silver medal after completing the women’s 200 T35 event in 29.09 seconds. It was her personal best performance in this event.
Meanwhile, Preethi Pal also produced her personal best performance to manage the podium finish. She secured the bronze medal after completing the race in 30.01 seconds.
In the women’s 100m T35 event at the Paris 2024 Paralympics Games, the podium finishes were exactly the same.
During the 2024 World Para Athletics Championships in Kobe, Japan, Preethi qualified for the Paris 2024 Paralympics Games in the women’s 200m T35 event by claiming the bronze medal in the event.
According to the Olympics, “The T35 class is for runners with coordination impairments such as hypertonia, ataxia, and athetosis.”
Preethi Pal: First Indian woman to win two medals in athletics in the Paralympics
By securing the bronze medal in the women’s 100m T35 event at the Paris 2024 Paralympics Games, Preethi created history by becoming the first Indian track athlete to win a Paralympic medal.
Now, Preethi became the first Indian woman to win more than one medal in athletics at a Summer Paralympics Games.
After winning her historic second medal in the Paris 2024 Paralympics Games, Preethi said, according to Olympics.com, "This is after five years of hard work but there have been people who have been taunting me and saying things that I won were because I was lucky,” Preethi said after winning her second medal.
"Winning tonight proves to people that it is not by luck alone but because of hard work. This is due to my coach Gaje-bhaiya (Gajendra Singh) who I remember after I had vomited in training because the intensity was so high.”
