Devendra happy after fulfilling his part of deal with daughter Jiya
PTI
Kolkata, Sept 14: Javelin thrower Devendra Jhajharia revealed Wednesday that a ‘deal’ with his six-year-old daughter propelled him to win a record second gold medal in the ongoing Paralympics at Rio de Janeiro.
Jiya, who would accompany Jhajaria to training in Rajasthan, struck a deal with her father that if she topped in the lower kindergarten exam, he would have to win a gold in the Paralympics.
“She proudly phoned me to announce that ‘I’ve topped, now it’s your turn’, something that kept on echoing in my ears when I entered the Olympic Stadium,” Jhajaria told this agency from Rio after winning the men’s F46 javelin throw.
Devendra in fact stayed awake whole night and kept talking to his family and well wishers till 5am in Rio. “Ab kya sona, ab hamein kuchh nahin hoga. Hum to Rashtriya Dhwaj ke saath celebration karenge (I won’t sleep anymore. I will celebrate with national Tricolour,” he said thanking every Indian.
It has been a long wait for the 35-year-old, who did not feature in the previous two Paralympics with the event missing from the Games programme. He had won his first gold in the 2004 Athens Paralympics.
Devendra falls under F46 classification which denotes ‘F’ for field events and the number 45-47 is for ‘upper limb(s) deficiency, impaired muscle power or impaired range of movement”.
To keep himself in shape and injury-free during this period, the Indian followed an intensive training as he rarely visited home, a small village in Churu district of Rajasthan. So much so that his two-year-old son Kavyan does not even recognise his father.
Before the Paralympics, he trained from April-July in Kuortane, Finland, where he became friends with Kenyan thrower Julius Yego, whom he calls one of his biggest motivators.
“He (Yego) would tell me his story of penury, of how he slept on a broken cot and how he learnt javelin throw by watching YouTube… It was quite an inspiration. If he can achieve after so much of hardships, why can’t I,” stated the record-breaking athlete.
“We would train for about seven hours. He would tell me I would surely win a gold in Rio. He went on to win a silver in the Rio Games. I will speak to him soon as he has been a strong force behind my success,” Devendra added.
Devendra further said that the sacrifices made by his mother Jivani Devi and wife Manju had played a great part in his success.
“My wife on the other hand left kabaddi so that she can take care of the family as I mostly stayed away,” stated Devendra. “My mother on the other hand took care of all the chores so that I could pursue my sport with single-minded dedication.”
When Devendra was about eight years old, his left hand had to be amputated immediately after he accidentally touched a live cable entwined in a branch of tree he had climbed. But the boy given up for ‘dead’ has now awakened up the entire nation with his gold-winning deeds.
He certainly deserves a huge salute.
