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Kapil Parmar, India’s first Judo player to bag a medal in the Paralympics, presented black belt to India Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The former won the Bronze medal in the Paris Paralympics 2024 , beating Brazil’s Elielton de Oliveira 10-0 in the Bronze medal playoff. Owing to this win, Parmar became India’s first Paralympic medalist in Judo. Notably, he played his first Paralympic games and made it memorable.
After the Paralympic contingent returned home, they met India Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, September 12. Parmar was one of them and he presented his black belt to Modi. "It felt really good. We all enjoyed the interaction with PM Modi. He gave us a lot of motivation. We gifted him a black belt as well. Only Putin had a black belt; now PM Modi also has a black belt," Kapil told ANI.
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PM Narendra Modi is like a friend for us: Yogesh Kathuniya
Apart from receiving the black belt from Parmar, Modi also spoke to other athletes. Ajeet Singh Yadav, who won the silver medal in Men’s Javelin Throw, revealed that Modi signed an autograph from him. "I am really happy to win the silver medal. It was a special occasion for me. I also got an autograph from PM Modi," Ajeet said.
Yogesh Kathuniya, who won the silver medal in the men’s discus throw called PM Modi as a friend who always supports him. "It was a friendly atmosphere. These things motivate an athlete to perform better. I told him that for people, PM means Prime Minister, but for me, it means 'Param Mitra'. You are like a friend to us. He always supports us," Yogesh revealed.
Sumit Antil, who defended his Gold medal in the Men’s Javelin Throw with a 70.11 m throw, dedicated his achievement to the India PM. The former said "This is my back-to-back second Gold medal. I still remember when I won the Gold in Tokyo, you took a promise from me that 'I want two Gold medals from you'. So, the second one is for you because before the Paralympics I was pretty nervous reading the article 'Most favourite to defend Gold."
