Hisar para athlete to represent nation in Club Throw event at Tokyo Olympics

Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Hisar, July 3

Asian para games gold medallist Ekta Bhyan, a resident of Hisar town, is set to represent the country in the Tokyo para Olympics games in category F51 of Club Throw event. 

Ekta, a resident of Urban Estate locality in Hisar, is serving as an HCS (Allied) officer in Haryana. She is top ranked in her category in Asia and was selected after trials in Delhi on Friday.

Vowing to keep up her form in a bid to win gold for the country, Ekta said it was a dream for her like every athlete to represent the country in the greatest show of sports. “Hard work has transformed this wish into reality. Now, I am focused on bringing a gold medal for the country,” she said.

After completing schooling, Ekta had aspired to be a medical student and also joined coaching classes in Delhi. However, an unfortunate accident occurred on August 4, 2003, when a truck overturned on their cab near Kundli on the Delhi-Haryana border and changed the course of her life. While six other students were crushed to death, she suffered quadriplegic spinal cord injury and has been wheelchair-bound since.

However, she did not lose hope and resumed studies after spending several months in hospital. She cracked the HCS examination after completing her graduation in 2013 and was posted as assistant employment officer in Hisar.

Her father, Dr Baljeet Singh Bhyan, a horticulturist, stood by Ekta’s decision when she decided to turn to sports. A late entrant in the field, Ekta started practising under Amit Saroha, an Arjuna Awardee para athlete in Sonepat in 2014. 

She later rose to emerge as top-ranked club thrower and won gold medal in the Asian Para Games held in Jakarta. In 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had lauded her emergence in para sports in his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ radio programme and also wrote a letter terming her success “a shining story of human endeavour”.

The PM had appreciated her fighting spirit in the letter while stating, “You overcame trial and tribulations with grit and courage and made the Tricolour fly high on an international stage. Despite being introduced to the sport at what many may consider a later stage, you not only imbibed it in your life but also excelled in it,” the PM had written to Ekta in the letter.