India’s medal rush in Para-athletics has come to a halt as Simran Sharma fell marginally short of a Paralympic medal and finished fourth in the women’s 100m T12 event at Stade de France on Thursday.
Simran clocked a timing of 12.31s in the final to miss out on a bronze medal to Germany’s Katrin Mueller-Rottgardt by just 0.05s.
Simran was among the medal favorites at the event but could not clock her personal best timing of 12.13s, which could have taken her to the silver medal position.
The legendary Omara Durand of Cuba clinched the gold medal in this category with a season-best timing of 11.81s. This was the tenth gold medal for Omara at the Paralympic games and fourth title in 100m.
On the other hand, the silver medal went into the favor of Oksana Boturchuk, who clocked a timing of 12.17s.
However, Simran will return tomorrow in the first round of the 200m T12 category. She is the world champion in this category and will be hoping to get a better result in this event.
Simran finishes fourth in final, misses a medal by a whisker 💔😓
Simran Sharma finishes with a timing of 12.31s and is out of the medal places in a close final against quality competitors. It wasn’t to be for Simran in Women’s 100m T12 event#ParaAthletics #Paralympics… pic.twitter.com/72hxYKSp9u
— The Bridge (@the_bridge_in) September 5, 2024
On the other hand, Arvind Malik took part in the men’s shot put F35 final but had a poor outing as he failed to cross the 14m mark and finished in 6th position with the best of 13.01m.
This was the first international tournament for Arvind but he could not make it a memorable one and finished way behind his personal best of 14.77m.
Khusniddin of Uzbekistan won the gold medal with a new Paralympic record of 16.82m while Hernán Emanuel (16.11m) of Argentina and Iran’s Seyed Jvanmardi (15.84m) won the silver and bronze medals respectively.