Unlucky at Rio Paralympics Rajasthan's Sundar Gurjar strikes gold in London; a profile in perseverance

Sundar Singh Gurjar triumphed in the men's javelin throw F46 with a personal best of 60.36m at 2017 World Para Athletics Championships in London on Saturday. He achieved the feat of being the first para athlete to clinch the gold at world championships.

Gurjar, an Indian para-athlete had earlier won three gold medals at the IPC International Grand Prix, Dubai in 2016, for his performance in shot put, javelin throw and discus throw.

He also faced disappointment at Rio Paralympics when he missed his roll call as he could not understand the announcers’ accent. On reaching the registration desk a minute later, he found that he had already been disqualified.

He says “I had to do this. I now had a bigger goal than the previous one. This time, I wanted to do something that no athlete had previously done before: I wanted to win medals for my country in three events.”

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Sundar Singh Gurjar aged 21 comes from Karauli district of Rajasthan. He met with a car accident in 2015. His world seemed to have come to a standstill as he lost his left hand in the accident.

But, the spirited young boy regained his enthusiasm and got going with training for the Paralympics. This time, he also started training for discus throw and shot put, along with javelin throw.

Gurjar suffers from unilateral upper limb impairment roughly comparable to the activity limitations experienced by an athlete with a unilateral amputation of one arm through or above the wrist and one intact arm.

Athletes with bilateral upper limb impairments where one arm meets the unilateral criteria, and the other affected arm does not meet the bilateral criteria above, also compete in this class.