Indian para shuttler Nithya Sre Sivan earned a bronze in SH6 category on Tuesday at the Paris Paralympics 2024. The SH6 is a newly introduced category, that features athletes in the ‘short stature’ category.
Nithya’s bronze brought India’s paralympics medal count to eight medals for the fifth day of the games, five in badminton, all earned within the same day.
The 19-year-old Nithya, who entered the tournament as a top seed, dominated her match against Indonesia’s Rina Marlina, winning 21-14, 21-6 in just 23 minutes. She had advanced to the bronze medal match after being defeated by China’s Lin Shuangbao in the SH6 semifinals with scores of 21-13, 21-19.
‘SH6 category’
The SH6 class features athletes of short stature who compete while standing. The ‘S’ in SH stands for ‘standing’ and the ‘H’ for ‘short stature,’ stated Olympics.com, the official website for the Paris Paralympics 2024.
Earlier on the same day, Nitesh Kumar won gold in the men’s singles SL3 class, Suhas Yathiraj earned silver in the men’s singles SL4 class, and Thulasimathi Murugesan and Manisha Ramadass secured silver and bronze, respectively, in the women’s singles SU5 class.
Paris Paralympics medal tally for India
Nithya’s bronze medal brought India’s total medal count at Paris 2024 to 15, marking only the second time in Paralympic history that India has crossed the 10 medal mark.
India’s best performance came at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics with 19 medals, including five golds. At the Paris games 2024, India has won three gold medals so far.
Other winners: Sheetal Devi, Sumit Antil
Indian archery duo Rakesh Kumar and Sheetal Devi clinched the Bronze medal in the Mixed Team Compound event with a 156-155 win over Eleonora Sarti and Matteo Bonnacina of Italy.
India javelin thrower Sumit Antil earned a gold at the Paris Paralympics with a record-breaking throw on Monday. In the men’s javelin throw F64 final, the champion broke his record at the Paralympics twice to earn India’s third gold in the ongoing games.