Preeti Pal secured his second medal at the Paris Paralympics as she claimed a bronze medal in the Women’s 200m T35. She clocked a time of 30.01 seconds and created history as she became the first-ever Indian woman track & field athlete to win 2 medals at the Paralympics or Olympics.
Preeti earlier had won bronze in the women’s T35 100m competition and she registered her personal best with a time of 14.21 seconds. The 23-year-old Preethi also became only the second Indian woman to win two medals — both bronze — in a single Paralympics after shooter Avani Lekhara who won a gold and a bronze in Tokyo three years ago.
The bronze won by the 23-year-old Preethi was also India's second para-athletics medal in the Paris Paralympics. On Friday, Preethi, a farmer's daughter from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, had clinched India's first athletics medal in a Paralympics track event, winning a bronze in the women's T35 100m competition with a personal best time of 14.21 seconds.
All the athletics medals India had won since the 1984 edition of the Paralympics have come from the field events.
In fact, the only other Indian woman track and field medallist in Paralympics is former Paralympic Committee of India president Deepa Malik who won a silver in the shot put — a field event — F53 category in the 2016 Rio Games.
(With PTI Inputs)