Mariyappan Thangavelu, who charmed the country with his high jump gold in the Paralympics in Rio, expressed his desire to meet the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu J. Jayalalitha and his hero, film superstar Rajnikanth.
Subdued and opening out hesitantly to express his views, Mariyappan said that he was delighted to live up to the faith of his mother Saroja who wished him the gold when he left for the Games.
After being felicitated by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the president of the Paralympic Committee of India (PCI), Rao Inderjit Singh in the Capital, Mariyappan said that he was keen to develop a playground in his village, Periyavadangapatti in Salem, apart from opening a sports academy.
Looking back, he said that he was surprised by the spontaneous cheering from the crowd in Brazil during his last jump and expressed gratitude to his coach Satyanarayanan for the diligent training, for about four hours in two sessions every day for the last two years.
Devendra Jhajaria, who won the javelin gold for the second time in the Paralympics after the Athens Games in 2004, said that he was confident of his performance even though the world standards had gone up significantly.
“The standard had gone up in 12 years, but my experience helped me,’’ said Jhajharia who broke his own world record to clinch the gold.
Deepa Malik, who won the silver in shot put, said that if she could achieve so much at her age despite the disability, everyone with a dream and who worked hard with sincerity and honesty would be able to achieve a lot more.
Varun Bhati was the other athlete who won a bronze in high jump, and the PCI president said that it was a fantastic performance by a small contingent of 19 athletes, to capture four medals. He praised the others for competing hard and mentioned that a few had missed medals narrowly while one could not compete.
Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh, an international skeet shooter with medals in the Commonwealth Championship and SAF Games to his credit, recalled the troubled times of PCI for the last few years when it was de-recognised thrice.
He said that international companies had expressed interest to support the Indian para athletes after seeing their performances in Brazil, but insisted that he would seek the support of Indian companies.
Interestingly, the PCI was recognised by the world body in time in June this year, which ensured that the national flag and anthem for India in Brazil.
He also acknowledged the support of Hero Group and Piramal Group for placing faith in the Indian contingent prior to the Games, when there was no guarantee of performance.
The Union Minister expressed confidence that all efforts would be made to get the best support for para athletes in future, and give them a good career.
He stressed that athletes like Mariyappan had emerged from the National championship in Ghaziabad which had drawn a lot of flak from the media for its conduct.
Rao Inderjit Singh was particularly grateful to the Prime Minister for spending time with all the para athletes and talking to them in boosting their morale. He thanked the television channels, mainly Doordarshan, for making the effort to telecast the action from the Paralympics which made heroes out of the medallists and made them household names.
It was stressed that the athletes deliberately kept a low profile before departure to ensure that their focus stayed on their events and there was no extra pressure on them to perform.
Our demand was only one, and that they had to perform better than what they had achieved in India, said the PCI president.