New Delhi: The Indian para badminton team finished with a rich haul of 23 medals, including seven golds, at the 1st Bahrain Para Badminton International Championships in Manama. Promising doubles shuttler Manisha Ramdass shot into limelight with her twin gold medal show, while Nithya Sre Sumathy Sivan (WS SH6) and Dhinagaran Pandurangan and Sivarajan Solaimalai (Doubles SH6) also claimed the other top honours for India.
Top para shuttlers Pramod Bhagat and Tarun Dhillon also clinched couple of gold medals each. Pairing up with Bhagat, Manisha got the better of Thailand's Siripong Teamarrom and Nipada Saensupa 21-14, 21-11 to take the gold in mixed doubles. Manisha also produced a strong show combining with Mandeep Kaur to win the gold in women's doubles SL3-SU5 finals. They took just 23 minutes to defeat the Paralympian pair of Palak Kohli and Parul Dalsukhbhai Parmar 21-11, 21-11.
Asian Youth Para Games champion Nithya Sre Sumathy Sivan continued her good run of form to defeat England's Rachel Choong 21-15, 21-15, while Mandeep settled for the second place after going down to Turkey's Halime Yildiz 21-5, 21-17 in the women's SL3 finals.
In doubles SH6, Dhinagaran Pandurangan and Sivarajan Solaimalai took the gold after Hong Kong's Chu Man Kai and Wong Chun Yim retired with one game all 21-12,10-21. "Our para shuttlers have yet again come out with great results. I am very happy with the way the players are delivering excellent results in back-to-back events. Though there's still some work needed to be done and one of the main focuses will be on their fitness," chief national coach Gaurav Khanna said in a release.
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"There are quite a few names who are doing really well in the recent tournaments. We have high hopes from promising names like Manisha Ramdass etc." The Indian team will next be in action at the 4th Fazza Dubai 2022 Para Badminton International that gets underway from Tuesday.
PTI
