Who is Deepthi Jeevanji – who broke the world record at the World Para Athletics Championships – Firstpost

Deepthi Jeevanji on Monday won a gold medal with a world record time of 55.07 seconds in the women’s 400m T20 race at the World Para Athletics Championships in Kobe, Japan. She became the first Indian woman to win gold in track events at a World Championship.

Deepthi’s timing allowed her to surpass American Breanna Clark’s record of 55.12 seconds, set at the 2023 world championships.

Jeevanji had qualified for the final after winning her Heats race in an Asian record time of 56.18 seconds on Sunday.

Thanks to her timing in Japan, she qualified for the Paralympic Games in Paris later that year.

The T20 category in para-athletics is aimed at athletes with intellectual disabilities. Deepthi was born with intellectual disability, a cognitive illness that hampered her communication as well as her coping skills.

“She was born during the solar eclipse and her head was very small at birth, with her lips and nose a bit unusual. All the villagers who saw her and some of our relatives called Deepthi pichi (mental) and kothi (monkey) and told us to send her to an orphanage. Today, seeing her become a world champion in a faraway land proves that she is indeed a special girl,” said Dhanalaxmi, Deepthi’s parent. The Indian Express.

At the Asian Para Games in Hangzhou, China, Deepthi won a gold medal with an Asian record time of 56.69 seconds. At the Para World Grand Prix in Morocco, she won gold in the 400m and another yellow metal arrived at the Oceania-Pacific Para Games in Australia.

Advice

Deepthi’s athletic talent was discovered by Biyani Venkateshwaralu, a physical education teacher at the Rural Development Foundation (RDF) school, when she was in Class 9 in Warangal.

She was ahead of her able-bodied competitors in the 100m and 200m races.

She then received coaching from Nagpuri Ramesh, the Indian junior team coach who also worked with Dutee Chand. He saw her compete at a state meet in 2019.

His parents, day laborers, struggled to make ends meet by working on neighboring farms. Hailing from Kalleda in Telangana, 150 km from Hyderabad, sending him for sports training was a pipe dream.

Further support came from legendary shuttler Pullela Gopichand, who recommended that he undergo testing at the National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities in Hyderabad. After necessary testing, she was certified mentally retarded, which qualified her to compete as a para-athlete.

Gopichand provided financial support to Deepthi through his foundation. “We needed an international license for her and Gopichand came on board to fund her travels. We went to Morocco and Australia and got its international classification,” Ramesh told Hindustan Times.

Thanks to the cash rewards Deepthi received, her parents were able to buy a small piece of land to farm their own crops.