Krishna Nagar on Sunday secured India's second gold medal in badminton at Tokyo Paralympics after notching a thrilling three-game win over Hong Kong's Chu Man Kai in the men's singles SH6 class final in Tokyo. The 22-year-old from Jaipur, seeded second, saw off his rival 21-17 16-21 21-17 in the final to retain his unbeaten run at the Games and join compatriot Pramod Bhagat in the gold medal winning list. Bhagat had claimed the first gold in badminton in SL3 class on Saturday. This was India's fifth gold at the Games.
Another super news has come from #Tokyo2020 #Paralympics
— Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) September 5, 2021
Congratulations to Krishna Nagar on winning a thrilling Gold medal in the Badminton Men's Singles SH6. India is proud of you Krishna!#Cheer4India #Praise4Para pic.twitter.com/5GI3nQtOvw
Earlier, shuttler Suhas Lalinakere Yathiraj ended his campaign with a historic silver after going down fighting against top seed Lucas Mazur of France in the men's singles SL4 class final. The 38-year-old Noida district magistrate, who has an impairment in one of his ankles, produced an entertaining performance before narrowly going down 21-15 17-21 15-21 to two-time world champion Mazur in a 62-minute summit clash.
The unseeded Suhas had lost to Mazur, who has won three gold medals in European Championships as well, in the qualifying group A match but the Indian made a tremendous effort in the final to challenge his world No. 1 rival.
The district magistrate of Gautam Buddh Nagar (Noida) thus also became the first-ever IAS officer to win a medal at the Paralympics.
#WATCH PM Modi speaks to Silver medal winner, para-badminton player and Noida DM, Suhas LY and congratulates him. Suhas recalls PM's words before the athletes left for Tokyo, where PM said to focus on their game instead of the results pic.twitter.com/icPiiDIciE
— ANI (@ANI) September 5, 2021
"I'm quite happy with the performance but I should have finished it off in the second game," said Suhas after winning India's third medal in badminton. "So I'm a little disappointed that I didn't finish it off because I had a handsome lead in the second game. But congratulations to Lucas. Whoever played better is the winner."
In SL4 class, shuttlers have lower limb impairment/severe and they play standing. Earlier, Pramod Bhagat and Manoj Sarkar had won a gold and a bronze respectively in men's singles SL3 category on Saturday.