Sharmila Dhankar made history on Monday by winning the women’s shot put F57 event and taking first place on the podium, making history as India’s first-ever para athletics gold medalist at the Commonwealth Games. Sharmila ended India’s 20-year drought for a para athletics medal in the CWG with a season-best throw of 9.81 meters. Glasgow was about redemption for Sharmila. She had finished fourth in the same event at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games, just missing out on a medal. She returned four years later with a goal and gave her best performance to date.
Inspiring Story Of Resilience
But it was a very difficult journey from Chitrauli hamlet in the Mahendergarh area of ​​Haryana to the Glasgow podium. As a child, she had very little money because her father was a farmer and owned a little piece of property. Her mother was 20 years younger than her father and had visual impairments. Sharmila was the second of three daughters, and 10 years after the youngest girl was born, a son was born.
At the age of two, Sharmila had polio, which left her left leg permanently damaged due to the lack of medical resources. Sharmila also endured the terrible experience of being in an abusive marriage, so this was not the end of it. She was married off shortly after finishing her Class 10 exams.
After that, she started working as a maid, cleaner and guard at a women’s hospital close to her village. Sharmila claimed that despite the low income, it allowed her to get away from her pessimistic thoughts.
Then, at the age of 28, she got married for the second time, which proved to be quite different from what she had previously experienced. She and her girls traveled to Rewari with her partner, Ajit Singh. He later encouraged her to participate in parasports. As we recently saw in Glasgow, the rest is history.
Glasgow Glory
Shortly after Sharmila’s victory, officials revised Nigeria’s Eucharia Iyiazi’s score to a no-mark and promoted teammate Shilpa Kanchugarakoppalu Shyla, who had originally placed fourth, to the bronze medal spot. India achieved their first-ever double podium finish in a para athletics event at the Commonwealth Games thanks to the drastic change.
