At the Para-Badminton World Championship in Pattaya, Thailand on Sunday, Indian players Suhas Yathiraj, Pramod Bhagat, and Krishna Nagar concluded an incredible run by winning gold medals in the men’s singles SL4, SL3, and SH6 classes, respectively.
In the SL4 final, Yathiraj, ranked third in the world and a silver medallist at the Paralympic Games, defeated Fredy Setiawan of Indonesia 21-18 21-18 to win her first world title.
The 40-year-old Yathiraj, an IAS officer from the 2007 Uttar Pradesh cadre batch who is from Karnataka, tweeted, “Gold it is, Happy and proud to be World Champion.”
He is currently the Secretary and Director General of Youth Welfare and Prantiya Rakshak Dal for the Uttar Pradesh government.
PRAMOD BHAGAT’S HAT-TRICK
Bhagat defeated Daniel Bethell of England in the SL3 final with a score of 14-21 21-15 21-14. Bhagat won two gold and two bronze medals at the Para Asian Games in China.
The 35-year-old Paralympian medallist Bhagat thus completed a hat-trick of victories, following Basel in 2019 and Stoke Mandeville in 2015. In the 2022 Tokyo Paralympics, he also took home a gold medal.
Another gold medallist from the Paralympic Games, Krishna Nagar, defeated China’s Lin Naili in the men’s singles final of the SH6 division, 22-20, 22-20.
Manisha Ramadass finished with a silver medal in singles SU5, losing to Yang Qiu Xia of China 16-21, 16-21.
After losing their respective championship matches in the SU5 and SH6 categories, the men’s doubles team of Raj Kumar and Chirag Baretha and the women’s doubles team of Rachana Shaileshkumar and Nithya Sre Sumathy Sivan had to settle for silver medals.
In the singles competition, there is a draw of 16, and in the doubles, there is a draw of 8 pairs.