KAITHAL: Harvinder Singh, who won the men’s singles recurve bronze in the Tokyo Paralympics, had a grand homecoming on Saturday with India’s first ever archery medal of any Olympics.
The 30-year-old para archer is son of a farmer and an economics scholar from Ajitnagar village in Guhla-Cheeka block of Kaithal district. The locals came out with band-baja to escort him to a stage where deputy commissioner Pardeep Dahiya honour him before his parents.
Out of the Indian team of five in the 16th Summer Paralympics, he was the only one from Haryana. He has represented India seven times and won the 2018 Asian Para Games gold medal in Jakarta, Indonesia. When his academy closed during the Covid lockdown, Harvinder chose a field for practice. He continued hitting the target instead for waiting for the academy to open.
He was all of 18 months when when a wrong injection for dengue fever crippled his left leg. He made his debut in archery in 2012 but had decided to quit after four years of bad results when his coach gave the him the golden advice of swtiching from compound to recurve archery. Harvinder Singh has never looked back since. He got several recuve medals in his first world championship in China in 2017 before that big outing in Jakarta.
DC Pardeep Dahiya said at the felicitation ceremony: “Harvinder has made all countrymen proud. He won India’s first archery medal in the Paralyampics. He is a motivation to those who want to rise above their disabilities.” Harvinder told the media: “One should not stop in the face of disability but have the courage them to change it into ability. Consistency and persistence can achieve any target in life. Keep the focus.”
