World Para Athletics Championships | Sharad Kumar wins silver, Varun Bhati secures Bronze

India had another great day at the field events in London yesterday as Sharad Kumar and Olympic medalist Varun Bhati shone in the high jump T24 event. Kumar missed the gold by a margin 0.02m which was accomplished by USA's Sam Gwewe who set a new championships record by clearing 1.86 m and winning the gold medal in the process.

"It feels good but I thought I'd jump higher than this. I'd come here chasing a gold medal, but I'll have to make do with silver," Sharad told TOI after his triumph.

Meanwhile, Bhati, though, confessed that he wasn't happy with his performance.

"My performance wasn't the greatest but a medal is a medal. So although I'm happy about it, I'm not completely satisfied with my own performance," he said.

London received heavy showers on Saturday and temperatures went down as low as 13 degrees and the athletes admitted that the cold and wet weather did affect their performance.

 "As long as we are warmed up well, it's a beautiful weather to jump. The only reason we were having trouble was because we are one-legged jumpers and the ground becomes slippery due to rain. Otherwise, it was fine for us," Sharad said.

"It's quite cold so the circulation in my left leg is quite sluggish. That makes it very stiff, and that makes things difficult. But nevertheless, I jumped 1.77m in this cold wearer, which is my best effort in this kind of climate," reckoned Bhati.

Sundar Singh Gurjar opened India's account at the championships winning a gold in the men's javelin throw event and followed that by bagging the silver medal in the club throw event in the F-51 category. On Friday, Karamjyoti Dalal won the bronze medal in Women's F55 category raising India's tally in the championships to three and the recent additions have raised India's tally to five.